Angela Merkel intervenes over court ban on circumcision of young boys

[13chapters]

Angela Merkel's spokesman has promised Germany's Jewish and Muslim communities they will be free to carry out circumcision on young boys, despite a court ban that has raised concerns about religious freedom.

The government said it would find a way around a ban imposed by a court in Cologne in June as a matter of urgency."For everyone in the

Comments

[belkisa]

mte

[anolinde]

Heh, looks like no one wants to touch this post.

[13chapters]

Maybe everyone is wanked out on this topic. And after I even made sure to disable comment notification! ;)

[redstar826]

In my experience, no matter how wanky the topic, in can be hard to compete with the Shenanigans Friday post

[13chapters]

Fine with me! :D

[thecityofdis]

LIPS THAT TOUCH LIQUOR SHALL NEVER TOUCH OURS

[redstar826]

whatever. more booze for me.

[thecityofdis]

can i just make a preliminary reservation for a table now at the "fuck half the comments that will appear here" restaurant? party of one. please provide liquor.

[yeats]

man, joining you...something about the topic really stuck in my craw, so i spent a good few hours reading up on the historiography surrounding (male and female) circumcision bans in colonial africa. now i am armed with fucking citations and ready to bash people over the head with context for claims of circumcision as "barbarism."

[redstar826]

that sounds really interesting. I wouldn't mind reading what you found (I mean, minus the part about getting bashed on my head :P

[salienne]

I second the desire to read what you found. (If it's not too much trouble, anyway. I realize it's Friday night.)

[romp]

Well, good. I'm all for children not being cut unless they're old enough to concert or it's a health need...but you can't legislate this. The change needs to come from within the groups in question.

I recently read about a group of people (Muslim, I think) who mime the circumcision and consider it a spiritual rather than physical act--it's good to know change is possible.

[alierakieron]

I know around here the bris shalom has gotten popular as an alternative, and I'd like to see a lot more of that myself. But it's got to be a change that groups decide to make for themselves, not imposed upon them by those in power.

[sesmo]

I know there is an altered version for children who have hemophilia for whom surgery would obviously be dangerous.

If the anti-circ folks want to change the Jewish rituals, they simply need to prove once and for all that it harms the health of the infant. Judaism is strong on the "all rituals can be moved when it's about life/health."