Genital mutilation of children: German court rules male circumcision illegal.

[JAD_333]

I disagree quite vehemently on this one. It may be generally safe, but it is certainly quite painful and analgesics are applied to avoid this pain. There are certainly no strong reasons to do it, and medical statistics point to only very very minimal gains in terms of reduction in risk for some complications diseases. On the other hand, aside from the initial trauma, it does render the area extremely sensitive.

Circumcision

I respect your vehemence. I agree it hurts; lots of things hurt. The question is, how badly. Is it enough to deny a religious group its custom, or a parent their judgement that it would be beneficial? What I object to is state interference in parental decision making. Are we to believe that all the parents in Germany who object to the court's decision are monsters who don't love their children?

I quite like Christopher Hitchens line of argument on this topic - generally moral and decent folk being reduced to do something heinous in the name of culture and religion.

I appreciate your offering the late Mr. Hitchen's views on the matter. I am not a Hitchens fan, although I enjoyed watching him perform and listening to his mellifluous voice. I rather prefer your view on the matter

[JAD_333]

The court verdict is now effective btw, there will be no further courts deciding on this particular case.

Ok..that's cleared up.

Following that announcement, the Berlin Jewish Hospital stopped circumcision for religious purposes today for fear of legal repercussions. The hospital performed about 300 circumcisions per year previously, about one-fourth of them on muslim boys and one-twelfth on jewish boys for religious reasons.

Are they challenging the law?

Article 2 of the Basic Law supercedes that. Everyone has a right to life and physical integrity.

I'm going back to the US Constitution. You can drive a Mack truck through that article.

Article 2 is a direct derival of the Eternal Law (Human Dignity Is Inviolable), whereas Article 4 is only a metaphysical derival.

I always knew German philosophy strains at the seams.

Kato, is Article 2 an exact translation to English?

[Double Edge]

I agree up to the point where you say secular law stands above religious law, but it cannot infringe on religious freedom.

I have this impression that this applies more in the common law countries than those with civil law.

Do not know how to express this better but civil law countries tell you what you cannot do.

France banning head scarves for example. Can't do that in a common law country.

France is civil law as are many other countries on the continent including Germany.

Btw this secular always trumping religious freedom is one of the issues the Islamists in Egypt have raised wrt to the civil law system they copied from the French. Moving to a common law system would remove the complaint but is a very involved task.

[andrew]

I agree up to the point where you say secular law stands above religious law, but it cannot infringe on religious freedom.
.......Uninfringed religious practice is guaranteed.

Your religious freedom ends where the freedom of another human being begins.

[kato]

Kato, is Article 2 an exact translation to English?

Official English translation for Article 2, Part 2:

(2) Every person shall have the right to life and physical integrity. Freedom of the person shall be inviolable. These rights may be interfered with only pursuant to a law. [note: law, not another part of the constitution]

Official English translation for Article 4:

(1) Freedom of faith and of conscience, and freedom to profess a religious or philosophical creed, shall be inviolable.
(2) The undisturbed practice of religion shall be guaranteed.

Are they challenging the law?

The only one who could have challenged the court ruling was the state prosecutor - since the accused was acquitted of his crime on technicalities. They officially decided to forego challenging.

We'll probably now have a couple lobby groups trying to introduce circumcision in some generalized description possibly as a separate law restricting Article 2 of the Basic Law (possible as referenced above). Doubt it'll be all that successful though.

Do not know how to express this better but civil law countries tell you what you cannot do.

Article 2, Part 1 of the German Basic Law:

(1) Every person shall have the right to free development of his personality insofar as he does not violate the rights of others or offend against the constitutional order or the moral law.
"free development of his personality" meaning "to do whatever they want".

Laws do not define what you have a right to do, they define which of your actions violate the rights of others in what ways.

[antimony]

I appreciate your offering the late Mr. Hitchen's views on the matter. I am not a Hitchens fan, although I enjoyed watching him perform and listening to his mellifluous voice. I rather prefer your view on the matter

My own views have evolved on this matter. For a while, I thought it would have been a necessary evil to protect against urinary complications. In fact, when we were expecting our first child and before we got to know the sex of the baby, I even contemplated this if it had been a boy. However with further reading I see the (statistical) benefits, if at all, are certainly not worth the trouble and the pain.

Circumcision

I respect your vehemence. I agree it hurts; lots of things hurt. The question is, how badly.

Quite a lot, and it stays with you throughout your life

Is it enough to deny a religious group its custom, or a parent their judgement that it would be beneficial? What I object to is state interference in parental decision making. Are we to believe that all the parents in Germany who object to the court's decision are monsters who don't love their children?

Not at all. In fact, it is the other way round - I would say that religious beliefs and any kind of strongly held customs (familial or tribal traditions, religious beliefs etc.) can make even good, decent people take courses of action that would be other wise be considered heinous. There are also attempts to justify by trivializing the suffering ("has been done for thousands of years", "infants feel no pain", "just like spanking a child's bottom", "just like cutting nails and hair","increases the chance of getting a Nobel prize") or highlighting faux-medial benefits ("reduces chances of aids", "reduces male UTI", "reduces penal cancer", "foreskin gets caught in zippers")

[andrew]

If Germany wants to ban parental choice re male circumcision, let its lawmakers pass a law to that effect, not allow a judge to decide it is horrific disfigurement, a psychological burden, and a breach of a child's rights.

There are many harmful religious and cultural practices in the world.
There is no need to pass a separate law for every one of them.
Child abuse is outlawed. This is enough.
The question of whether a specific practice is indeed harmful and constitutes a child abuse, can and should be decided in a court

[antimony]

There are many harmful religious and cultural practices in the world.
There is no need to pass a separate law for every one of them.
Child abuse is outlawed. This is enough.
The question of whether a specific practice is indeed harmful and constitutes a child abuse, can and should be decided in a court

That is quite open and leaves a lot to judicial interpretation. It is also avoidance of hard decisions by the Legislative body.

[bigross86]

I quite like Christopher Hitchens line of argument on this topic - generally moral and decent folk being reduced to do something heinous in the name of culture and religion.

Sample argument - starts at 3:15

Methinks he doth protest too much....

[bigross86]

Quite a lot, and it stays with you throughout your life

When I was 8 days old my parents got me drunk and cut off a part of my dick. Lemme tell you, until today I can barely look them in the face, and I still can't walk properly (it's somewhere between a gait and a shuffle) because of something that happened almost 26 years ago. My friends and I have even founded and helped others start support groups so we can help deal with the losses of our foreskins.

- "My name is Ben, and I was snipped."
-"We love you, Ben, and we love your penis"

Seriously?! I would have no idea how much it hurts, because I was 8 days old and was probably crying for some reason or another anyway. I don't remember how much it hurt when I broke my arm playing soccer and I don't remember how much it hurt when my dad smacked my for shoplifting a candy bar. Guess what, I haven't shoplifted anything since. Was my dad wrong for smacking me? Depends if you believe in the merits of corporal punishment or not. My step-dad tells me stories of receiving six-of-the-best from the Headmaster and walking out of the Headmaster's office with his head held high. I doubt he remembers today how much it hurt, even on a scale of 1-10, and he was still getting beat in school for pulling shit at the age of 17.

I don't have psychological hangups wondering "what if" and I don't spend hours in the shower and in bed fondling myself and wondering what would have happened if only I had a foreskin to play with. My girlfriend and I are both quite happy with our sex lives, thank you very much.

You don't wanna get circumcised as an adult, that's fine. You don't wanna get your kid circumcised, that's also fine, no one is forcing you to. If you choose to practice a religion, that's up to you. But you also have to follow all aspects and tenets of that religion and that faith. If you're Muslim you can't have bacon, either. If you're Jewish you can't have a quarter-pounder with cheese. You're not allowed to work on the Sabbath, and do get to go to Heaven. One of the duties of belonging to certain religion is circumcising your child. You can live with that, or not. Should parents now have no hand at all in raising their children?

This argument is the same argument as banning ritual slaughter like Shechita or Hallal. What if someone passed a law that Jewish tradition of not cutting a boy's hair until they were 3 caused irreparable psychological damage to the boy because people might confuse him for a girl, and led to onset homosexuality later in life? Would you support that? After all, why can't they cut his hair at age 2, or even at a year? Here's an idea: Mothers should not be allowed to breast-feed because they can use formula and such early exposure to breasts causes a fixation on breasts which leads to a higher percentage of males becoming rapists and sexual offenders.

If you want to argue whether religion is good or bad, that's fine. If you want to be atheist, that's also fine. But to try and tailor a religion to suit your views is wrong. Most people in the world believe that Muslims blowing themselves up to get to heaven is bad. Have people anywhere tried passing laws outlawing Jihad? No, they try and get the Muslims themselves to evolve to a part where they teach that suicide bombing is wrong. Don't you think that a law against preaching for a Jihad would make more sense than an anti-circumcision law? But for some reason we don't do that. Where does one draw the line against tailoring and designing (tampering with) other religions?

[kato]

Here's an idea: Mothers should not be allowed to breast-feed because they can use formula and such early exposure to breasts causes a fixation on breasts which leads to a higher percentage of males becoming rapists and sexual offenders.

There are psychologists who do follow that theory - the exact other way around. Mostly Freudians from sexually repressed countries though.

Should parents now have no hand at all in raising their children?

So, what do we do with parents who claim let's say an Abrahamitic religion in which they have to sacrifice their firstborn to their God?

More seriously: If the parent's religion encroaches on any rights of the children - no they shouldn't. Hence why we do interfere with parents who try to e.g. keep their children from general education because they believe that a girl should marry without knowing what her vagina is for, that a boy should not see a girl's arms or legs once she has bled provided she is not his wife, that some sky fairy just snipped his fingers and the world came into being, that we need to meditate until we can fly on our own in order to save the planet, that a person who is not of their faith is subhuman or that you need to chastise yourself until your back is covered in blood to prove your absolute faith, that a woman who aborts should be led out into the public to be stoned?

Most of that list isn't random btw, but the demands and declarations of various religious parties we have in Germany. The scary thing is that roundabout 100,000 people actually vote for those guys.

[troung]

Quite a lot, and it stays with you throughout your life

Dude WTF seriously? Yeah I guess I'm happy they only had to do it once.

Women like it and it separates me from the fire worshiping idolaters - I'm not seeing why people are getting so worked up. Unless its jealousy.

[andrew]

Where does one draw the line against tailoring and designing (tampering with) other religions?

What if I with a few like-minded people will create our own cult of Handless God and start to cut hands of our children in the name of our God?

The line is obvious. Your religious freedom ends where the freedom of another human being begins.

[bigross86]

There are psychologists who do follow that theory - the exact other way around. Mostly Freudians from sexually repressed countries though.


So, what do we do with parents who claim let's say an Abrahamitic religion in which they have to sacrifice their firstborn to their God?

More seriously: If the parent's religion encroaches on any rights of the children - no they shouldn't. Hence why we do interfere with parents who try to e.g. keep their children from general education because they believe that a girl should marry without knowing what her vagina is for, that a boy should not see a girl's arms or legs once she has bled provided she is not his wife, that some sky fairy just snipped his fingers and the world came into being, that we need to meditate until we can fly on our own in order to save the planet, that a person who is not of their faith is subhuman or that you need to chastise yourself until your back is covered in blood to prove your absolute faith, that a woman who aborts should be led out into the public to be stoned?

Most of that list isn't random btw, but the demands and declarations of various religious parties we have in Germany. The scary thing is that roundabout 100,000 people actually vote for those guys.

So like I said, outlaw religion. Those that are true practicers of any given religion will not pick and choose what to keep in that religion, so you're forcing them to break the law. Why is one tenet of religion good and the other bad?

Tell me, what do you think the world outcry would be if Israel banned the sale of pig products within its borders? Iran executes gays. Different religions have different practices, as of yet we don't have a universal religion. Deal with it. Until that happens, what is good for one will not be good for another. Tell you what, let's start small: Which day is the holy Sabbath day that we shouldn't work on? Friday, Saturday or Sunday?

[bigross86]

What if I with a few like-minded people will create our own cult of Handless God and start to cut hands of our children in the name of our God?

The line is obvious. Your religious freedom ends where the freedom of another human being begins.

Really? How come I don't see you posting anything about legislation banning Islam? Suicide bombing = acceptable, circumcision = the end of the world. Got it.

Or does Islamic freedom not end where the freedom of another human being begins?

How about late-term abortion to save the mother? Okay or not? Does her freedom end where the freedom of her baby begins?