Circumcision ban to appear on San Francisco ballot
May 18, 2011|By ROBIN HINDERY, The Associated Press
A proposal to ban the circumcision of male children in San Francisco has been cleared to appear on the November ballot, setting the stage for the nation's first public vote on what has long been considered a private family matter.
But even in a city with a long-held reputation for pushing boundaries, the measure is drawing heavy fire. Opponents are lining up against it, saying a ban on a religious rite considered sacred by Jews and Muslims is a blatant violation of constitutional rights.
Elections officials confirmed Wednesday the initiative had qualified for the ballot with more than 7,700 valid signatures from city residents. Initiatives must have at least 7,168 names to qualify.
I know that it's become trendy among many on the left to look down on the practice of circumcision, but by what stretch of the imagination would it be acceptable for them to impose their personal ideology on the subject on everyone else? This is even worse than the most fanatical smoke nazis...
I doubt this will pass even in this loony town, and if it did it probably violates a whole host of state and federal laws, (not to mention the Constitution)...
Initiatives must have at least 7,168 names to qualify.
That sounds like about 1% of the city's population....
One thing I will say is that some of the most outrageous regulations that get passed into law in this burg frequently aren't enforced...
Like the one that was supposed to start leveling fines on people who didn't turn their backyards into magnets for rats and maggots by scrapping all discarded food into unlined unbagged containers....
And the one that banned people from using their fireplaces...
The police simply don't have the time, the resources or the inclination to enforce that sort of nonsense. (One of our neighbors is a cop, and whenever one of these idiotic social engineering ordinances are passed I always ask her, "are you guys planning to enforce this?" generally the answer is no...)
I don't know if I find the fact that this is put to a popular vote admirable as a democratic practice, or risible as you already have elected politicians to conduct your democracy.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
It's always seemed to me to be somewhat of a barbaric practice unless done for medical reasons. When all is said and done it is, after all, mutilation.
Why is it that when Miley Cyrus gets naked and licks a hammer it's 'art' and 'edgy' but when I do it I'm 'drunk' and 'banned from the hardware store'?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
I agree with Jim if it passed the ordinance would be unconstitutional.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.
It's always seemed to me to be somewhat of a barbaric practice unless done for medical reasons. When all is said and done it is, after all, mutilation.
Well that's your opinion Sean, and you're certainly entitled to it, but how do you feel about the idea of forcing that opinion on to others? (Which is what this initiative seeks to do.)
I don't know if I find the fact that this is put to a popular vote admirable as a democratic practice, or risible as you already have elected politicians to conduct your democracy.
I don't have a problem with the initiative process per se, ( I don't see having a little direct democracy in the mix as a bad thing...there are times when the legislators aren't addressing important issues for various reasons, including influence from special interests) but I definitely think 7000 signatures is way to low a bar to qualify for the ballot in a city of this size. You could get 7000 signatures in this town to declare the moon landings to be a hoax; (we once had a question on the ballot about whether or not a specific police officer should be allowed to carry a ventriloquists dummy on his beat) the taxpayers bear a certain expense when these frivolous questions are placed on the ballot. (their portion of the printing cost of voter guides that go out to every registered voter and the cost of tabulating the votes for them for example)
Lord Jim wrote:Well that's your opinion Sean, and you're certainly entitled to it, but how do you feel about the idea of forcing that opinion on to others? (Which is what this initiative seeks to do.)
You mean like federal and state laws that have long since been passed outlawing female circumcision? The physical difference is only a question of degree, even if the cultural reasoning behind them is quite different.
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose
It's ridiculous to frame the defense of cirumcision as a religious issue, since the overwhelming majority of circumcisions are not done for religious reasons.
If the only argument against this ordinance is that it offends the First Amendment, then the conclusion is that it should be ok to ban circumcisions for anyone but Muslims and Jews.
But a law that is universally applicable doesn't offend the First Amendment just because religious practices happen to be interfered with as a result. Rastafarians do not have a constitutional right to smoke marijuana in defiance of a universally applicable prohibition.
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose
Lord Jim wrote:
Well that's your opinion Sean, and you're certainly entitled to it, but how do you feel about the idea of forcing that opinion on to others? (Which is what this initiative seeks to do.)
The best thing to do if anyone who lives in San Francisco wants to cut off part of a newborn child's penis would be to take a short drive to a another county.
It's ridiculous to frame the defense of cirumcision as a religious issue, since the overwhelming majority of circumcisions are not done for religious reasons.
Actually, what's ridiculous is to compare the removal of a portion of the foreskin to the removal of the clitoris....
I have to say Scooter, sometimes I really find your "analogies" amusing because they are frequently so over the top.....
The physical difference is only a question of degree
Do you see the difference between the removal of a toe and the removal of a leg as "only a question of degree"?
Through my life I have known of the uncircumcised having problems due to a foreskin. I have also known of some that have been circumcised later in life.
I have absolutely no recollection of mine, they can't say the same...
Sometimes it seems as though one has to cross the line just to figger out where it is
Well I suppose you could consider this "cutting off part of the penis" in the same sense that you could call trimming your finger nails cutting off part of your fingers, since both have precisely the same affect on the functionality of the appendages in question. (This is actually a pretty good analogy since keeping one's nails trim also contributes to good hygiene; the biggest difference between the two is that circumcision only has to be preformed once.)
Lord Jim wrote:Well I suppose you could consider this "cutting off part of the penis" in the same sense that you could call trimming your finger nails cutting off part of your fingers, since both have precisely the same affect on the functionality of the appendages in question. (This is actually a pretty good analogy since keeping one's nails trim also contributes to good hygiene; the biggest difference between the two is that circumcision only has to be preformed once.)
By that logic one should also do a Van Gogh on every child's ears so they don't have to clean behind them. It certainly doesn't affect the "functionality" in any way either.
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose
Gee whiz, instead of banning it, maybe we ought to make it mandatory:
Circumcision, which has been practiced for centuries, involves removing an infant's foreskin. Although long motivated primarily by cultural and religious practices, evidence has been accumulating that it also has health benefits.
In addition to reducing the risk for urinary tract infections among infants, studies indicate that circumcision cuts the chances of adult men's getting penile cancer and becoming infected with a variety of sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, AIDS, herpes and the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes genital warts in men and women and cervical cancer in women.
In 2005, the American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed a policy adopted in 1999 that backed away from routinely recommending circumcision, saying the evidence of benefits was insufficient to endorse the routine use of the procedure.
But evidence continued to mount about the possible benefits, most notably three large studies conducted in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda that concluded that circumcised heterosexual men were about half as likely to become infected with HIV as uncircumcised men.
"The evidence has gotten much stronger with the results of these trials of the potential benefits of circumcision," said Ronald H. Gray, a professor of reproductive epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, who led two of the recent studies.
In addition to reducing the risk for HIV, research indicates circumcision cuts the risk of getting HPV and herpes by about a third, according to a review Gray published last week in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine. Although the procedure does not reduce the risk of HIV infection in the men's female partners, women who had sex with circumcised men were less likely to get HPV and bacterial infections.
"Higher rates of circumcision would certainly prevent a substantial number of infections," Gray said. "The risks are extremely small and the benefits are substantial."
This Story
Reduced infection risk
Circumcision appears to reduce the risk for infections because the foreskin contains cells that are more easily penetrated by viruses and has a moister environment more conducive to the growth of viruses and other microbes. The foreskin is also prone to developing tiny tears during sex that increase the risk for infections, Gray said.
"Men who are uncircumcised are more likely to have a variety of infections under the foreskin, and the inflammation from those infections could increase the risk of ulcerations, which could also increase the risk of infection," Gray said.
Other experts agreed.
"If we had a vaccine that was as effective as this at reducing the risk, we'd be jumping up and down with joy," said Arleen A. Leibowitz, a professor of public policy the University of California at Los Angeles.
