Topics for 2/19/04 and 2/23/04:

1. ANNOUNCEMENTS - Any events, news, or other items that you feel are of interest to the group can be announced at the start of Free Inquiry Forum.
2. Korean researchers have created a human clone and derived the first cloned stem cells from it. How do you feel about this recent breakthrough? Is cloning something to be feared or embraced? Should cloning be banned? Therapeutic cloning and/or reproductive cloning?
3. Larry Flynt says he plans to market a story that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion in a book to be published this summer. Some political activists are encouraged "smear campaigns" and the engaging of political mischief. Do you feel that this is a necessary practice? Would you disseminate damaging information about your political enemies without knowing if it was true or not?
4. The Mayor of San Francisco is marrying same sex couples even though it's against the law. Is the mayor crossing the line? Should there be a constitutional amendment to define marriage as only a union between a man and a woman? Are civil unions for same-sex couples fair and equivalent to marriage?
5. Will you see Mel Gibson's new movie, "The Passion of Christ"? Is Gibson's movie taking too much heat? Do you feel, from what you know so far, that the movie is anti-Semitic? Was the controversy something that was planned in order to get more publicity?
   

Quote of the week: "Critics who have a problem with me don't really have a problem with me in this film. They have a problem with the four Gospels. That's where their problem is." [Mel Gibson discussing his film, "The Passion of Christ", with Diane Sawyer on ABCNEWS' Primetime]

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