Strange Bedfellows Theologians and politicians have joined forces against research in the cloning of humans. It is a curious alliance, yet there is precedent for this. Church authorities in the past have fought against such things as a spherical world and heliocentricity. Galileo's stated belief that the Earth moved and the sun was at the center of things nearly cost him his life. Secular authorities would have burned him as a heretic at a nod from the church if he hadn't recanted.
Many politicians join fundamentalists to oppose evolution.
The religious right recruits legislators to try to keep evolution from being taught in schools. It is unfortunate that research generally can be controlled by politicians, who have distinguished themselves in the past by doing things like passing legislation to establish the value of pi at 3.2. If We Can, We Will But science and scientific knowledge have a way of prevailing in the long run, and anything that can be done eventually will be done. The world is round and revolves around the sun, but it took centuries and a number of lives to establish this fact. If human cloning is a possibility, it will become a reality, eventually.