German circumcision ruling alarms Jews, Muslims

[Brad Reddekopp]

Mutilating another person's body for purely religious or cultural reasons when the victim has not consented (because he or she has not yet developed the capacity to consent) is, to my way of thinking, disgusting and barbaric. It's as simple as that. The fact that such barbarism has a long history and is socially acceptable in some circles doesn't change it from being what it is: the forcible mutilation of those who have no opportunity to give consent to it.

German circumcision ruling alarms Jews, Muslims

BERLIN — The Associated Press
Published Friday, Jul. 13 2012, 8:12 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Jul. 13 2012, 8:14 PM EDT

The German government sought to reassure Jewish and Muslim parents Friday that they will continue to be able to circumcise their sons according to religious tradition, despite a local court’s ruling that the practice amounts to bodily harm.

Muslim and Jewish leaders had protested against the Cologne court decision in the case of a four-year-old boy who suffered medical complications after the procedure.

The head of the German Medical Association recommended this week that doctors cease performing circumcisions for religious reasons until the law can be clarified.

“We want Jewish, we want Muslim religious life in Germany,” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert

said.

“Circumcision carried out responsibly must be possible in this country without legal punishment.”

Officials said the government was examining various legal options and seeking a quick solution to resolve the issue. Jewish tradition requires that boys be circumcised eight days after birth.

Germany is sensitive to criticism about its treatment of religious communities due to the country’s history of persecuting Jews.

[Hierophant]

Great... it's still not illegal! They still aren't going to put those rabbis in jail!

[Brad Reddekopp]

No, they're not.

[charlesfahringer]

Supporting this sort of law ignores the social context in which it is being passed. It's like a black flag anarchist signing up for the U.S. war in Iraq to kill Ba'athists.

[Hierophant]

What? That reply makes no sense. What social context would excuse mutilating babies?

[charlesfahringer]

You fail to appreciate the analogy. What social context justifies the evils of Saddam Hussein's regime? Given the opportunity, I (or current me) would have done reasonable things to oppose the Ba'athists' tyranny. I didn't support the U.S. invasion, though, nor do I support these laws in Germany and Norway. The laws empower the central government and allow conservative politicians to take political advantage of people's xenophobia and distrust of out-groups. However bad surgical genital mutilation has been, it doesn't even come close to the hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths caused by Ba'athist rule in Iraq. If the later isn't enough for me to stand side-by-side with politicians who stoke public distrust of outsiders and minorities, the former certainly isn't.

[Hierophant]

Again I repeat...

[charlesfahringer]

You support an application of a law. You call yourself an anarchist. I call you a bullshitest. This is not an important enough issue to side with the state. It's really fucked up that people cut of the tips of their newborn sons' penises because they believe stories about a genocidal sky wizard. However, anarchists have seen much worse without supporting state action against it. There are people who abuse their biological children horribly in ways that leave obvious long-term physical and psychological damage, far beyond any negative effects of circumcision. Does that justify the interventions (e.g. foster care) the state has introduced to stop these evils?

[Hierophant]

No, you are the one who has problems with basic logic.

Of the two situations:

(1) The government refuses to put baby-mutilators to justice.
(2) The government finally acknowledges that physical assault is a crime and puts baby-mutilators to justice.

I would rather have (2). But I would even more rather have (3):

(3) We live in an egalitarian society where babies have rights.

So you are the one who is full of it, dumbass. You don't understand anything.

[charlesfahringer]

Are you forgetting about the fact that "put to justice" means using government sponsored courts and increasing the authority of the state police? Just like all issues involving children, parents have too much control, and that can lead to abuses. When the state seeks to end those abuses, though, it isn't doing so because it supports equal legal status for children, but because state agents think that they have an ethically-derived authority over children's lives, and they envision themselves as children's protectors. If you support children being recognized as having rights independent of adults, supporting expanded state-based protection against parental abuse will not achieve that goal. Indeed, established public policy on laws against physical harm to children has been "help instead of punish". This specifically applies to corporal punishment, which, on the one hand, is a traditionally accepted way of treating children, and, on the other hand, has much more obvious negative long-term repercussions. So the German courts have established this ridiculous double standard that severely punishes types of child abuse practiced more commonly by minorities while merely chastising for more severe abuse that is popular among the majority demographic. Essentially, they've turned this reasonable law against physical and psychological harm into a law against causing harm if you're a Jew or Muslim. Thus, the German government is really enforcing standards concerning who can influence children. (If this anti-harm rule were really about supporting children's rights, courts would have been even tougher on parents who practice corporal punishment.) As a net effect, that's more harmful than the very small number of circumcisions that will be prevented due to this law.

[Hierophant]

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