circumcision set (Photo credit: istolethetv)
According to Reuters, Angela Merkel has been thinking of alleviating the ban on child circumcision in Germany. The Germans still seem rather weak when someone plays the Nazi card, or compares the decisions of the government on religious or racial hate. The controversial law was a great secular decision to promote children’s rights, but religious people saw nothing of that sorts. I quote from the Reuters article:
Pinchas Goldschmidt, the Swiss-born chief rabbi of Moscow who organized the meeting, said the ban was a fresh example of creeping prejudice in European law against non-Christians, after a Swiss ban on minarets, French and Belgian bans on Islamic veils in public and an attempted Dutch ban on halal meat.
“Circumcision represents the basis for belonging to the Jewish community. It has been practiced for 4,000 years and cannot be changed,” said Goldschmidt.
I find it outrageous that he says that the ban of circumcision before the age of consent is part of a creeping prejudice against non-Christians. In what Medieval age does his gracious holyness Pinchas Goldschmidt live in? When I read that comment I felt that a new low had been reached by a leader of a religious community. Of course he does not see the wrong in his own doing, for God is on his side.
No religious organization should be allowed to do genital mutilation on their children, by the same logic that would allow such acts many other acts and rituals should be legalized, but apparently genital mutilation is not that bad. When Goldschmidt says that genital mutilation and sacrifice has been practiced for 4,000 years and cannot be changed, he fails to realize that the tradition began during very savage times.
Another issue is brought to my mind by the same Reuters article, and I quote:
European rabbis ended their meeting in Berlin on Thursday in a defiant mood. They plan talks with German Muslim and Christian leaders in Stuttgart next week to see how they can fight the ban together.
The ruling by the Cologne Regional Court applies to the city and surrounding districts with a total population of just over 2 million people. The total population of Germany is about 82 million. Cologne is home to about 120,000 Muslims, whose plans for a new central mosque has stirred anti-immigrant sentiment.
The head of the Conference of European Rabbis urged Jews in Germany to continue carrying out circumcision despite the ban.
Defiance and dissent, though very admirable when used towards a worthy cause, in this debate on circumcision I am sad to see them reduced to a form of bullying done by a party that should not have political power. The tactics of their defiance aren’t even playing fair and are leaning more on advocating extortion. Either you let them perform the genital mutilation at a hospital or then they will do it underground illegally. They are holding their own children hostage in essence.
One of the problems here is that these people are being dishonest. They are touting religious freedom, but really they just can’t wait to get their hands on the genitalia of little boys, or so it seems. It is more a sick obsession, the same sick obsession that most religions have on sexuality, and the way I see it is more a fight between a completely amoral right against an ethically sane right.
Which would you have? I pose the question on to you.
The right to cut pieces of skin off your son’s genitals or the children’s right to be untouched.
Related articles
- Circumcision ban is the ‘worst attack on Jews since Holocaust’ (independent.co.uk)
- Merkel: Germany’s Jews won’t be punished for circumcisions – Haaretz (haaretz.com)
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