Male circumcision is a controversial topic. Since I posted my entry about Pelle Billing’s comparison between circumcision and maiming on Monday, I have received several emails from people who disagree with me. Two of the emails came from the organised anti-circumcision lobby, and I thought it might be interesting for you to read them. Since readers cannot post comments on this blog, I take the liberty to publish emails I think are meant as comments.
The first email is from Michael Keith, coordinator of MGMbill.org, an organisation seeking to outlaw the practice of male circumcision in America:
Dear Christopher,
Following your logic regarding negative opinions about male genital cutting, you would have us think that all those activists working against female genital cutting are anti-muslim. After all, most Muslims worldwide practice Suni circumcision on their little girls: snipping off the clitoris. 96% of women in Egypt have been ritually circumcised in just that way and they like it just fine. So if we complain about it, then we must be anti-muslim.
Your logic directs us to accept female circumcision as a legitamate religious practice.
Given your rabid (shades of “fanatic anti-abortion activists”) attack on Dr. Pelle Billing, I really don’t expect you to poses the competency to be able to examine your basic hypocracy.
Dr. Michael Keith
Oakland, CA
Here is my reply:
Dear Michael,
You are misinformed about religion and female genital cutting. Neither the Bible nor the Koran mentions female circumcision or anything of the sort. In northern Africa, where female genital cutting is still quite common, parents have their daughters mutilated for non-religious reasons. It is a tradition that dates back at least three millennia. It has been made illegal in most modern countries because it causes severe problems to the women.
Male circumcision is something altogether different. Jewish men are demanded by the Bible to have themselves and their sons circumcised. It is the most important commandment, the very sign that someone is Jewish.
For Muslims, male circumcision is not a Koranic commandment but rather a recommendation. Muslim tradition speaks of hygiene being the reason.
Male circumcision does not cause men any of the problems that female genital cutting causes women. The male foreskin is not comparable to the female clitoris. Male genital cutting does exist as a method of torture and punishment in some cultures. This is when the glans or the entire penis is cut off, which makes it impossible for the mutilated man to ever have a normal sexual experience. This mutilation is the only practice comparable to female genital cutting.
Best regards,
Christopher Aqurette
Here is Dr Keith’s reply:
Dear Christopher,
Please do your research on female genital cutting, particularly the most common form practiced today by Muslims and Coptic Christians throughout the world. The type of female genital cutting you cite in Africa, though horrible, is rare.
Please also visit the following link to see what many Jews are saying and doing about circumcision:
http://tinyurl.com/yccs3ve
I have many close Jewish male friends who feel deeply harmed by what was done to them and the recent studies published in the British Journal of Urology comparing the sensitivity of the circumcised and intact penis back them up. The findings conclude that 75% of penile nerves and 100% of the most erogenous, located at the opening of the foreskin, are amputated at circumcision. The glans of the penis is one of the least sensitive/pleasurable areas of the penis. Indeed the sexual functioning of the foreskin is comparable to the clitoris.
Though, you probably could care less that your penis lacks normal sensitivity. But then what do you say about all of the boys who die every year from circumcision?:
http://www.circumstitions.com/death.html
Jewish law states that after two children have died from circumcision, sequentially, the third need not be circumcised. So Jewish law recognises a death rate associated with the ritual and Jewish law recognises that one need not be circumcised in order to be Jewish. Have you ever wondered why Jews are not afflicted by hemophilia. Hemophilia was literally bled out of the Jewish race, with each infant afflicted with this genetic disorder, bleeding to death after circumcision.
The Jews that I know care deeply about not harming children and the adults that they become. They are saying no to male genital cutting or MGM and would agree with Dr. Pelle Billing’s findings on circumcision.
Dr. Michael Keith
Oakland, CA
I decided not to continue the discussion. We have different opinions and I don’t think any of us would be able to convince the other. However, one thing I find interesting is that all but one of the rabbis and Jewish organisations I found through Dr Keith’s links seem to be secular humanists (atheists), which helps to explain why these Jews are less inclined to practice traditional Jewish customs.
The second emailer is Gerald David Coleson of the National Organisation of Circumcision Information Resource Centers. He writes:
“Circumcision” has nothing to do with being Jewish or Muslim. Learn the history and understand that 60 percent of Jewish boys in Scandinavia are intact today. The only reason Jews or Muslims defend it is because they have already done it. They are no more immune to the repetition of the cycle of sexual abuse than anyone else. So the article about Pelle Billing where at the end you write that “circumcision has been used to legitimise anti-Semitism” is wrong. Just because Freud noted some misconception on it, doesn’t make anti-”circumcision” anti-Semitic. In fact, “circumcision” is anti-Semitic because it denies a Jewish boy his birthright to his full range of sexuality. Speak with a Jew who is against the practice and they will tell you that it has nothing to do with being Jewish. The practice isn’t written anywhere in the Koran either. It is simply a bad habit they picked up along the way because of some idiot in their tribe that imagined that somehow this had to be done. It is a product of a superstitious minds, to which religion is prone.
My reply:
Dear Gerald,
I don’t know where you get your information from, but I live in Scandinavia and I’m an active member of a synagogue and several Jewish organisations. (People assume I’m Christian because of my name, but I’m not.) The large majority of Jewish parents here, as in all other parts of the world, circumcise their sons. There are, of course, those Jews who don’t care for religion and tradition, but even among secular Jews, circumcision is the norm.
To outlaw circumcision would be to criminalise the Jewish faith. It is the most important commandment and the very sign of God’s unique relationship with the Jewish people.
So I suggest you learn the history. Banning circumcision is what every anti-Semitic regime has done since the Roman Empire was Christianised. To portray Jews (and later Muslims) as barbaric and bloodthirsty is something Christians have done for two thousand years. It all dates back to Paul’s letters in the New Testament.
Best regards,
Christopher Aqurette
Other people have sent me all kinds of comments, ranging from supportive encouragement to disapproving insults.
One thing I find a bit annoying is libertarians who somehow turn into enthusiastic government supporters on this issue. Why is it all right for politicians to dictate how people should practice their religion when we say no to political interference in all other private matters? I think it has to do with many libertarians’ fondness for Ayn Rand, which includes her atheism. Personally, I don’t care if people are religious or not, what is important to me is that government stay out of people’s private lives. I’m a big fan of negative liberties. Freedom of religion is such a liberty. Most, if not all, international and European declarations of human and civil rights include a protection of religious practice. This protection is there for a reason. History has taught us that people’s religious convictions are one of the most common motivators for violence, war, and social instability. Religion is closely linked to ethics and ethnicity; so much so that most people don’t even realise that the ideas they take for granted have religious origin. To protect the freedom of religion is to protect universal human rights, basic civil liberties, and the civilised peace of Western democracy.
Update: A made a mistake when I wrote the last paragraph. I meant “negative liberties”, not “negative rights”. I have now corrected my mistake. However, although I didn’t mention it in this entry, I would argue that a Jewish boy has a positive right to his heritage.
