Wow… I thought that me and my dad had some blowout fights when I was an adolescent. The guy was so unreasonable. He wanted me to mow the lawn, take out the trash, and go to school. Every male knows the scene — you hit adolescence and decide that in some form, you should challenge the silverback for dominance of the pack. You lose. A few years later, you realize just how cool your dad was in the first place.
Anyone who thinks that their dad might have been a little uptight at any time in his youth needs to count his blessings!
Picture yourself in this situation:
You have lived a normal life for 12 years. Your parents get divorced, and your our dad joins a club, lets call it the “Super Adventure Club.” The Super Adventure Club says that they want you to cut off a piece of your genitalia (For those of you who attended Kansas public schools: If you are a boy, that means your penis, if you are a girl, that means parts of your labia).
Your mom says “no way. I don’t care what club you joined, nobody is cutting off a piece of my little boy’s penis.”
Dad sues to get the state to grant him the right to force you to have a piece of your penis removed.
That’s one dad that shouldn’t get a goddamned thing for father’s day this year, I’ll tell you that much.
I wish this was fiction, but this is exactly what is going on in Oregon.
The Oregon Supreme Court dealt with this by asking “what does the 12 year old want?” You know, get the opinion of THE BOY WHOSE PENIS IS GOING TO BE BUTCHERED!
Seems reasonable, but not to the father and several Jewish organizations that filed an amicus brief arguing that the boy’s attitude about whether he wants the circumcision is not legally significant. They assert that a child is not the decision-maker on such questions, any more than an infant who is circumcised. Further, they argued that the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause gives the father a constitutionally protected right to circumcise his son, arguing that American Jews must be free to practice circumcision because it is and has been one of the most fundamental and sacred parts of the Jewish tradition. (source)
I think that any group that says it is okay to slice off a piece of a 12 year old’s penis against his conscious will is a bunch of sick freaks.
When sick and twisted witch doctors want to do this to little girls in Africa, we have candlelight vigils, Amnesty International raises a stink, and anyone of any intellectual capacity whatsoever joins in with the complete global outrage. (example)
When it happens in Oregon, these sick and twisted freaks think it is a violation of their right to religious freedom, and it gets very little press attention.
For the record, I am not necessarily anti-circumcision. I had my penis involuntarily mutilated when I was an infant. Although I would have preferred to have had some say in the matter, I hold no grudges about it. I’ve heard both pro and con arguments regarding the practice, including a recent report that says that circumcision can reduce the chance of HIV infection by 50%. Accordingly, I take no position on whether it is good or bad to be circumcised.
I do take a strong position on this: Anyone who thinks that it is okay to take a knife to a 12 year old boy’s penis, and who takes the position that his opinion on the matter is irrelevant is a sick, sick, sick, lowlife.
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