This thread has been dead for some time, but since you brought it up, freedom of religion has limits in a secular and free society, not just religions we don’t like, but all religions. I think a fine limit can be placed at the point at which your religious beliefs entail the amputation of healthy, non-renewable, normal, functional errogenous body parts from the sexual organs of a defenseless infant. If you want to comment, this subject has been addressed in exhaustive detail, with much of what I said on it in the threads below remaining unaddressed and unrefuted. If you want to slog through these to bring you up to speed on the debate and then add something new of substance, by all means do so. If not, perhaps best to leave it as is.
It is a sad enduring feature of human nature that once a practice so visceral, personal, and intimate as forced genital cutting becomes ingrained in a culture, even when all thinly cooked up medical wrappings for it have fallen away, people will continue to fiercely defend their right to wound their own children on “cultural” grounds, which really just means “because I really, really want to”.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=541265
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=525829&page=4
The discussions on this always tend to become pedantic and polarizing, but it really comes down to two simple questions: whose best interests are really being considered here, the baby’s, or his parents? Studies show strong evidence that this unnecessary amputative surgery interferes with emotional bonding, negatively affects breast-feeding, and causes strong evidence of severe psychological stress in the baby. The best interests of the child are to remain with his mother, not to be strapped to a restraining board to have his genitals crushed and sliced. The second question is: who has the right to elect for cosmetic amputative surgical body modifications? The clear answer in all other cases in medicine except this single, glaring instance, is only the owner of the body themselves.
Please read the above threads for full update on what has been said already, but quite simply, as the surgical amputation carried out in hospitals today under the euphemism of “circumcision” is non-therapeutic and has not a single conclusive benefit, it is deeply unethical for doctors to perform on a non-consenting infant, and is an unjustifiable harm. No one has the right to forcibly amputate normal, healthy, functional, non-renewable body parts from another human being without their full and informed consent. Proxy consent from the parents of the child is utterly invalid, and has been found so by courts in lawsuits filed against doctors for having done it anyway, and yet the practice continues. For more on the medical ethics of this, I invite readers to
www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org. Basically, every time a doctor does this they violate their oaths as a physician, and they invite a lawsuit for sexual assault, medical malpractice, and medical fraud by the child themselves when they turn 18.
The guy behind this proposal is idenitifed as a “gay activist” all over the internet. I won’t post the links since they contain a lot of truly gross pictures. He said in an interview that he “lives with his partner”. Now he could be a straight gay activist living with a female partner but I don’t thinks it’s a big leap to say he is more likely “gay” than not.
