Helmet or anteater?
Ah Gomorrah-by-the-Bay! What won't my wacky former home town think of next?
The latest from San Francisco is a proposition to ban circumcision in infants that looks almost certain to get on the ballot in November.
It's being spearheaded by one Lloyd Scofield.
San Francisco would seem to have particularly need of this practice, considering that there are numerous studies showing that being circumcised cuts down substantially on the risk of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
But as the Chronicle article says, 'others have indicated that the procedure is not worth the associated risks and diminished sexual function.' Whatever those risks and that diminished function might be..I can just imagine.
Needless to say, this goes squarely against the grain of Jewish religious beliefs,where most males have a Brit milah (ritual circumcision) performed by a trained mohel (a rabbi or Jewish physician specially trained in the process and in conducting the ritual) on the eighth day after their birth as a symbol and commemoration of G-d's covenant with Abraham.
If this nonsense passes, San Francisco's Jews will simply have the ceremony done elsewhere.
I once had a Nigerian co-worker from London. She said they circumcise too. She over in the UK they would hire a mohel to take care of it. I thought that was interesting. Not sure the Nigerian population in San Fran. Will this bill outlaw circumcision by mohels? Or just ones done by doctors in a hospital? By the way, I have not noticed any diminished sexual function.
ReplyDeleteThat's not what your wife told me the other night ( LOL!).
ReplyDeleteSorry, couldn't resist.
Lots of cultures circumsize.As a MOF, many non-Jewish babies in America get a hospital circumcision, because th ehealth and cleanliness benefits are pretty well known.
The bill will outlaw ALL infant circumcision, regardless of who does it.
This won't withstand a court challenge for those of the Jewish faith. And I would imagine that challenge will be filed the day this little bit of insanity is approved. Who in the world is pushing this, anyway. It is so bizzare as to be surreal.
ReplyDeleteWhat I despise about this bill, other than the outright attack on Jewish rituals, is the fact that the anti-circumcision crowd has hijacked the movement from what it was meant to be and that is a movement against female genital mutilation. Somehow this movement that is supposed to protect women from this complete and utter abomination, practiced throughout the African and Arab worlds,is now focused on removing the foreskin of males rather than FGM, as if they are the same thing.FGM results in the destruction of the entire female genital region, not only taking any sexual pleasure away but makes it highly likely that labor and delivery will result in a myriad of complications from extended labor, sterilization, infact mortality and maternal death, never mind the high possibility of fistulas.Shame on San Francisco for allowing this revolting bill.
ReplyDeleteIf native americans can smoke weed as part of their religion, then jews will be exempt from this law too, right?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing you don't care for opposing views, but here they are.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, the law would only ban non-therapeutic non-consensual circumcisions (including those performed by mohels on minors).
I think the time to be outraged was 1996, when congress voted in a law to ban all female genital cutting (even a pin-poke to draw 1 ceremonial drop of blood) with no religious exemption. By the 14th ammendment, thousands of males will sue in 2015 over denial of equal protection.
It would be unconstitional to give the present law a religious exemption, because that would be a failure to protect someone based solely on his family's religion.
AIDS was mentioned, with citations of African work by Bailey and Wawer/Gray. But in 2009 Wawer/Gray reported that circumcising their Ugandan subjects made them 50% MORE likely to infect their partners with HIV, and Bailey reported in 2010 that circumcised men of Kisumu, Kenya were no less likely to have HIV after all.
Most of the US men who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth.
The reason to protect an infant's right to remain intact is that the foreskin has exquisite value for sexual pleasure, which as suggested, is hard for cut guys to imagine. It's HIS body. The law just ensures it's HIS decision.
'TLC Tugger' eh? I'll just bet you are.
ReplyDeleteI received several silly and frankly offensive comments I deleted, but yours wins the lotto.
I did a search of my own, 'Tugger.' Apparently a lot of your day is spent sitting at your computer and googling words like “circumcision” and “mohel” seeing what comes up.and posting comments, regardless of relevance or context. And if you don't get through with one pseudonym, you use another.
You don't deserve an answer, but here it is.
First, Muslim-style Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has nothing to do with Brit millah. It's a clitorectomy, performed on young girls of ten or so, usually without anesthetics, has no health benefits and robs a woman of almost all sexual pleasure. it also usually scars them for life because of the conditions its done under. Brit millah does none of these things.
Second, how would YOU know whether it has any effect on sexual function. Being an anteater rather than a helmet, you wouldn't.
I haven't seen the studies you mention, and - what d'ya know - no links. But there are literally hundreds of studies, including the one I cited in this article that testify to circumcision's benefits in preventing AIDS and STDS, Common sense would tell most people that since the foreskin is essentially a container that can be a major repository for germs and disease unless the underside is kept scrupulously clean.
Also, most of the men who died of AIDS died not because they were circumsized, but because they engaged in promiscuous and unsafe sexual practices in places like gay bath houses and homosexuals in places like San Francisco had enough political clout to ensure that politicians didn't interfere with that aspect of their lifestyle no matter how many died. read Randy Schiltz's "And The Band Played On" sometime.
Your constitutional argument is likewise ludicrous since the right to free practice of religion would trump it, as it does not with FGM because as I said, the two are different. A court challenge to the '96 law went nowhere.
Finally, even your argument about 'sexual function' was correct, guess what 'Tugger'? There are other more important things, like honoring the Convenant between G-d and Abraham that trump that.
Of course, you have no understanding of that, but when it comes to interfering with people that do and whom honor it, I suggest you mind you own freaking biz and go back to your tugging.