Raelian UFO Cult claims to be collecting funds to rebuild clitorises for mutilated women

Ian David

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Mon Sep-14-09 03:30 PM
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Raelian UFO Cult claims to be collecting funds to rebuild clitorises for mutilated women

Raelians Rocket From Clones to Clitorises

The Raelians have championed some strange causes in the movement's 25-year history, including aliens and human clones, but now they are going to bat for a body part -- the clitoris.

The cult's leader, Rael, whose real name is Claude Vorilhon, has become outraged by the custom of female genital cutting, the primarily African practice in which part of a girl's genitalia is sliced away.

Now the Raelian Movement has resolved to build a hospital in the West African country of Burkina Faso, where women could come to have their clitorises "reconstructed."

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There have been allegations that the Raelian Movement uses its doctrine of free love to attract recruits (such as this 2005 article from Wired.com), and sensual massage is reportedly a key part of their seminars. "Some people say they were first attracted to the movement because they thought they would get laid," says Susan Palmer, a professor of religious studies at Montreal's Dawson College who wrote a book on the Raelians. "But more than recruiting, it's a way for people within the movement to bond," she says.

Clitoraid is an nonprofit organization set up by the Raelian Movement to help women around the world who have suffered genital mutilation. The woman on the right of the photo is wearing a clitoris costume. Photo: Tony McNicol

More:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/02/hospital

See also:

Clone evaluator suspends work, says it may be hoax

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The science journalist who organized a team to evaluate claims of the birth of the first human clone has suspended his review and now says the announcement by Clonaid, a company tied to an unconventional religious sect, could be "part of an elaborate hoax."

"The team of scientists has had no access to the alleged family and, therefore, cannot verify firsthand the claim that a human baby has been cloned," said Michael Guillen in a written statement Monday. "It's still entirely possible Clonaid's announcement is part of an elaborate hoax intended to bring publicity to the Raelian movement."

Las Vegas-based Clonaid is linked to the Raelians, a religious group that believes space aliens came to Earth and began the human race through cloning. The company claims that two cloned human babies have been born, the first in an unidentified country to a U.S. couple and the second to a lesbian couple in the Netherlands.

After the birth of the first baby, which Clonaid officials said was dubbed "Eve," the company said it would allow Guillen, a freelance journalist who has been covering the issue of human cloning for the past six years, to conduct an independent inquiry to determine if the baby was indeed a clone of its mother.

More:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/01/06/cloning.scientist/index.html