Izawwlgood wrote:Which is why religious freedom is something to be protected, amiright?
There are two different arguments being conflated here. One is the constitutional issue of stripping away religious freedom--which is very important to consider, from a legal perspective, when considering whether to allow a religious exemption from the law.
The other is the pragmatic argument--that even if no religious exemption were written into the law, Jewish people won't stop circumcising their kids anyway. And if this law were proposed on (hypothetically) a nationwide level
without the religious exemption, public outcry and lobbying would stop it in its tracks--so why bother wasting time? Write in a religious exemption and be done with it.
It's analogous to how most people KNOW that alcohol is more dangerous and deadly and long-term-health-problematic than several other substances which are illegal. But if anyone seriously proposed illegalizing alcohol too, they'd get shouted out of the arena. There's a
history and a
public acceptance backing circumcision and consumption of liquor, even if we as a nation would be better off without both.
It'd be better to cajole and win over would-be circumcisers who don't have a religious purpose for it than to outlaw it, anyway. But that's tangential.
sourmilk wrote:Yes, there's also a traditional purpose, but as far as its effects as an actual procedure go, we recognize that it's really just cosmetic. Well, a lot of us probably argue that it's beneficial for the baby, but in reality it's about neutral.
Do all sects of Judaism agree with your neutrality about it? Even the really orthodox ones? Meaning, if this law were to hypothetically pass, all Jews would stop circumcising their kids and not really care either way? That's hard to believe, given how ritualized it has become.
Male circumcision is unarguably genital mutilation. In many (if not most) cases, the procedure is designed to make the male fit in better with other males, and to appear more attractive to the opposite sex. It's directly analogous (physically) to removal of the labia in females. Ew, that would look weird.
