In which comic books in the USA become clearly anti-Semitic:

[underlankers]

As some may know, there's a whole furor in San Francisco over penises. This may seem unsurprising given that it is San Francisco, except that in this case the furor is over circumcision. A man named Hess has been advocating banning circumcision of men, which is opposed by both Jews and Muslims in the city. As well it should be, for such a ban is a

Comments

[a_new_machine]

We bar a lot of religious rituals. If you're having peyote off a reservation, you will be arrested. Same for pot if you're a Rastafarian. Are those morally indefensible *because* they interfere with religious rituals?

I'll agree that the comic is obviously anti-Semitic. This does not mean the ban is. To quote Eugene Volokh, "As best I can tell, opponents of male circumcision believe that it’s a serious interference with the rights of boys, and the men they’ll become, and a serious harm to those boys and men. If that’s so, then there’s every reason for them to think that it’s just as much an interference with rights, and just as much of a harm, when the conduct is done for religious reasons. And therefore it makes perfect sense that, with no hostility to the religion as such, the backers would refuse to include a religious exemption. The refusal to give people a religious exemption from a ban on behavior that you think is harmful and rights-violating hardly shows a hostility to religion - it shows a hostility to the behavior, whether

[underlankers]

The problem is that the religion in question has been subject to a continual series of repression and one of the more subtle ways of doing that is to ban circumcision under the guise that it's preventing mutilation by a barbaric culture. The Aztec analogy ignores that nobody does that sort of thing as religious practice anymore, while circumcision is a global practice for more than just Islam and Judaism.

Christian countries have bad histories with laws like this, and not exempting religion is well....problematic. It may seem unjust and stupid, but so were the anti-Semitic laws that targeted Jews for this in the first place.

[mrsilence]

The Aztec example does take that into account, because in point of fact human sacrifice as a religious rite does still happen very occasionally in various places and it's NEVER been given an exemption on the basis of religious practice. If it happened in the continental United States you can bet your last dollar it wouldn't get a pass as anything but murder.

As for the question of it as ongoing tradition of a ethnic group that has been wrong done by, that in itself makes me sympathetic and why I'm little inclined to stay on the fence, but as an argument, it takes the form of "Two Wrongs = A Right".

[underlankers]

It does to some extent, yes, but to me that factor can't exactly be ignored and is why the religious exemption would have been the smarter move. Not exempting religion turns the discussion very quickly into religion-bashing as opposed to something constructive.

[paedraggaidin]

"...opponents of male circumcision believe that it’s a serious interference with the rights of boys, and the men they’ll become, and a serious harm to those boys and men..."

If they backed that up with credible evidence, I'd be more willing to believe their sincerity. Frankly, having been one of those poor little circumcised infants (though not for religious reasons), unnumbered are the ways in which my lack of a foreskin has not interfered with the man I've become, and I can't think of a single way it has, to say nothing of the alleged "harm."

[a_new_machine]

I dunno. I personally think it's something that is such a part of our idea of ourselves that we don't think about it. I once had a girlfriend (thankfully, a very brief one, once I realized the crazy) who insisted that she'd never sleep with an uncircumcised guy. It was a huge crisis for me. I was 16 and willing to do stupid shit to get laid, but the very idea of giving up this part of me was fucking terrifying (not to mention the whole surgery thing, and having to carry an erection-killing inhaler for several weeks).

[paedraggaidin]

Erection-killing inhaler? o.O Ay caramba!

She sort of sounds like the one I not so fondly refer to as my Psycho Ex From Indiana....

[a_new_machine]

After we broke up, she threatened to beat me with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire (she had taken pains to show me the barbed wire beforehand). I wasn't all that threatened, as she probably weighed 90lbs soaking wet, but still, the fact that she set up her crazy break-up threats... yeah. She also thought she could use black magic to change her eye color. Again, thankfully short-lived.

And the inhaler - apparently if you get an erection within like two or three weeks, things will tear, and life rapidly becomes unpleasant. So you carry this inhaler that's basically anti-Viagra around with you. Not cool.

[blue_mangos]

Which seems like an excellent argument for having the procedure done in infancy, no? ;)

[a_new_machine]

Not really. I'm quite happy that I am not circumcised, and considering that I've only (and will only, if life proceeds as planned) have sex with 1 person, who has only ever had sex with me, I'm a living breathing specimen of someone for whom the process would've been entirely unnecessary.

[mybodymycoffin]

There is at least one group of men who claim trauma over their being circumcised and see it as abuse.

[raichu100]

This.

Maybe the ban had anti-semitic beginnings. Obviously, I think that is wrong. However, I do think a circumcision ban is a good thing, since it's a choice a man should be allowed to make when he's old enough to decide for himself.