This Week’s Newsletter

“To get more accurate results, you’d need to circumcise a group of men who didn’t need to be circumcised. Good luck finding volunteers.”
Isn’t this the reason why we should not be forcing irreversible surgery on those that cannot consent to begin with? Uncircumcised men in the developed world do not go out and get circumcised by the masses, nor do they want to — and that seems to be emotionally distressful for many Americans, who continue to try to justify the archaic religious practice. 

The only reason circumcision persists so strongly is because it is done on individuals who cannot fundamentally consent, and the practice carries forward with no second thought — a ritual carried out for the sake of tradition.

The real question here is why it needs to be on a ballot. This is NONE of the governments buisness!

Not “bent out of shape,” but I believe it’s wrong and it bothers me.  I am happily unpierced, myself.

I’m reminded of the old joke my minister father used to tell about the priest, the preacher, and the rabbi who all got new cars.  The priest went out and sprinkled holy water over his.  The preacher said a blessing over his.  The rabbi went to his car and cut three inches off the tailpipe.

Like abortion?

Why a San Diego group funding a weird ballot proposition in San Francisco and promoting it with anti-Semitic propaganda?

The comic book is quite offensive. But merely criticizing certain practices of a religion is not the same as being bigoted.

The comic book isn’t “quite offensive”, it’s a textbook example of neo-Nazi propaganda: The villain is rabbi, the hero is a (blond-haired, blue-eyed) Aryan and they fight over the masculinity of a blond baby. The San Diego publisher funds ballot propositions to ban circumcision, but only in liberal cities.

The question, I repeat, is “Why is a San Diego group funding a weird ballot proposition in San Francisco?” They funded one in Santa Monica too.

Seems a little odd that a group from one of California’s most conservative cities would fund ballot measures which violate the religious freedoms of Jews, but only in California’s most liberal cities, and then promote it with literature which any thinking adult would recognize as anti-Semitic.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that San Francisco and Los Angeles counties have the highest proportion of Jews in the state? (6.4% and 5.9%, respectively).

Nah. I’m sure that’s just a weird coincidence.

That’s a good one, but my favorite circumcision joke is about the guy who goes into town to get his clock repaired. He passes a cobbler with shoes in the window, a butcher with meat in the window, and a jeweler with rings in the window. Finally he finds a shop with a clock in the window, goes in, and asks the man behind the counter how much it would cost for a new mainspring.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about clocks,” the man tells him.

“But aren’t you a clock repairman?”

“No, I’m a mohel. I perform circumcisions.”

“So why do you have a clock in the window?”

“What would YOU put in the window?”

I am curious as to why an article about circumcision is in the Chronicle of Higher Education?  Do we have colleges that are going to lose their instructors who teach this practice if the ballot passes?  I do not remember ever seeing a course titled “Circumcision 101″.  Are females allowed to register for this course or is males only?

If a person who is, say, 30 years old undergoes a medical procedure and the doctor decides to end their life simply because the person’s mother decides that this child is inconvenient….

I don’t consider this to be apples and oranges….

And it’s been acceptable for thousands of years to cut parts off of babies. I’m not Jewish, but I think they believe that the Almighty, Himself, commanded that this be done.

I know quite a few Jews who grew up to be not so religious.  (Me for one, but I’m a female.)  Among the males, I haven’t heard any bitter resentment over their circumcision, but as adults they surely no longer believed (if they ever did) that “the Almighty, Himself, commanded that this be done.”

As for your abortion obsession: if you believe one procedure should be banned on the basis of immorality, you should understand the arguments against this one too.  Just because circumcision is a procedure mandated by religion doesn’t mean that the argument against it — the “secular” argument — cannot also be grounded in ethical values.

If you believe it is wrong, don’t have it done to your sons. Otherwise let parents make religiously informed decisions that do not seriously affect the child’s health. Given the size of Orthodox Jewish families, circumcision doesn’t seem to impinge on the health or sexual functioning of the males. Can’t speak to the circumcised males of Muslim families, but I expect it is about the same.

My favorite is the one about the frenchman, the russian, and the jew drinking in a bar. A number of flies are buzzing around and the frenchman says, “Watch this! I, Henri, am the greatest swordsman alive!” And he proceeds to impale a fly on his epee. The russian says, “That is nothing. I, Vlad, am the greatest swordsman alive!” and he takes his shaska and cuts a fly in half. The jew says nothing, but takes out a short, dagger-like knife. He throws it at one of the flies, and whoosh! it goes right under the beastie, touching it without killing it. “Ha!” say the frenchman and the russian, “You missed! What a schlimiel!”  “No,” says the jew, “now the fly is jewish!”

I disagree. The next thing we will be banning people from infant ear piercings, vasectomies and removing the navel to make “innies” instead of “outies.” This is not sexual assault nor is it the same as female circumcision which definitely affects sexual sensitivity and pleasure. If religious people criticized a behavior that non religious people do to their bodies, religious people are quickly called ignorant, bigoted, intolerant and other types of names. We can’t have it both ways. I am “un-pierced” to but I believe people has the right to pierce their ears and the ears of their children if that is their cultural persuasion.

I sure can’t disagree with that!

But in answer (once again) to willismg (whose last message was so embedded it permitted no reply):  I am not one of those people who insists abortion is okay.  I tend toward the pro-life position.  I might even embrace that position if it weren’t for all the crackpots I’d be embracing at the same time.

On the other hand, I understand the pro-choice position.  This human life we’re talking about is, frankly, a bunch of cells.  While I worry about the slippery slope of picking some moment at which we call these cells a “person,” the removal of a mass of cells from a person’s body — a mass which can even be dangerous to its host — seems to me quite different from killing an autonomous person.

Even aside from any actual dangers of pregnancy, this embryo or fetus is dependent upon and interferes with the life of another human being, however innocently.  If a non-pregnant person experienced the symptoms of pregnancy, we would call it an illness and try to cure it.

Letting a boy keep his foreskin until he is capable of deciding for himself whether he wants it or not does not interfere with anyone’s life or health but his own.  That is why a pro-choice person might support a right to terminate one’s pregnancy, but not to circumcise a child once he is born.

If religious people criticized a behavior that non-religious people do to the bodies of *others*, without their consent, I think they’d be perfectly justified in speaking out.
 
The more I think about it, the more I disapprove of piercing babies’ ears.  At least parents who choose circumcision may have their son’s health or well-being at heart.  But piercing an infant child’s ears is treating that child like property, like a decorative object to show off.

And suppose that *is* their “cultural persuasion”? Well, what if the child grows up and wants to dissassociate from that culture? Then they’re left with a permanent physical alteration for no good reason. People should have the right to choose whether or not to remain in the religion or culture of their birth, and only after they freely choose should they be marked or branded as a member.
 
If you approve of cosmetic surgery on children’s navels (I had no idea this was a routine procedure!), do you also approve of all cosmetic surgery for children?  I can see correcting a cleft palate or other disfiguring condition, but how about eye-lifts, botox, breast implants?  Without the child’s desire or consent?
 
And vasectomies?  Are you telling me that parents have vasectomies performed on their sons without their consent?  And that’s fine?

Rebecca, I “liked” your reply.  (I’m replying to myself since your message is too embedded.)

I disagree, however, that “you cannot make it illegal to subject a child to the basic practices that constitute membership in that religion.”  I think we certainly can, and do, if we determine that those practices are simply unacceptable.  (You make a good case that circumcision wouldn’t rise to that level of intrusion.)

Also, I cannot see how it would be a violation of the First Amendment to prohibit parents from imposing religious practices on their children.  The First Amendment doesn’t give parents rights over children.  It gives rights to individuals and groups who “freely assemble.”  It prohibits laws against the “free exercise” of religion, but not against the enforced exercise of religion.

And one other thing: I thought infant circumcision, when performed by the mohel, was done without *any* anesthesia … and that adult circumcision can be done with a local anesthetic. Is that truly not the case?

Isn’t it interesting how we (US culture) are so quick to label the cutting of female genitals “mutilation” when we use the euphemism “circumcision” to label the cutting of male genitals. 

Forced genital cutting of minors is a clear violation of human rights no matter what gender is cut. 

It’s really not so different.  Male genital cutting removes an entire organ dedicated to sexual pleasure.  The prepuce or male foreskin is not “just skin” it is biologically ignorant to believe so.  In an adult male the foreskin is double layered, approximately 15 square inches of skin, and contains 20,000+ specialized nerves (FYI the clitoris has just 7000 of these nerves).  The foreskin has 2 functions in a male’s life.  In infancy and childhood it covers and protects the very sensitive glans.  It is adhered to the glans the same way our fingernails are adhered to our fingers.  It separates naturally on it’s own.  The glans is designed to be kept moist and smooth, like our eyeballs and the inside of our mouths.  When a male becomes sexually active, the foreskin is all about pleasure. 

Surgically removing the foreskin results in a loss of up to 80% of a male’s sexual pleasure.  Scarring can be so bad that erections are painful and sex is not possible.