Jewish Religious Liberty Threatened in CT; Help FIC Fight Back Nov. 19
Stop “Intactivists” from criminalizing male circumcision, including Jewish brit milah
Family Institute of Connecticut Action fights for the religious liberty of all of Connecticut’s citizens, not just Christians. We will be responding to an attack on the religious freedom of Connecticut’s Jewish community tomorrow. Although it is short notice, we invite as many FIC members as possible to join us.
Opponents of circumcision (also known as “intactivists”) will be rallying near the Capitol on Tuesday, November 19. These groups include Intact Connecticut and Bloodstained Men. Intactivists have been promoting draconian legislation criminalizing all male circumcision, including religious circumcisions. One bill in Massachusetts, which would have sentenced both parents and mohelim to 14-year prison terms, received a public hearing as the “Massachusetts State Prohibition of Genital Mutilation Act.” In San Francisco, intactivists were able to petition to get a ban on the city ballot before the state pre-empted them with its own legislation. These proposals explicitly forbade any religious exemption. The Massachusetts legislation had the following clause:
… no account shall be taken of the effect on the person on whom the operation is to be performed of any belief on the part of that or any other person that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual.
We are organizing a counter protest to stop this grave menace to religious liberty before it takes hold in Connecticut. Although time is short, we ask you to join us:
Date: Tuesday, November 19
Time: 10:00 (The “intactivists” plan to remain until 3:00 in their white suits with immodest blood stains. FIC will be there for the first hour, 10 am, or however long people can stay.)
Place: Intersection of Capitol Avenue and Lafayette Street, Hartford, near the state Supreme Court building opposite the Capitol
November 18, 2013
If I were living in CT, I would be with the FIC tomorrow. The intactivists are also known as meshuganas (crazies)!
November 18, 2013
Thanks for standing up against this ill informed and predjudiced group. Circumcision is wisdom from the Bible and clearly is a deterrent to disease http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/08/27/circumcision-benefits-are-significant-pediatricians-say
November 19, 2013
I personally don’t care for circumcision, but this is pretty darn ridiculous…
I wonder if anyone seriously believes that this is reasonable legislation? It seems as though this legislation is destined to fail, but I think that we should help it to do so every step of the way.
December 3, 2013
I was born into a Jewish family and circumcised according to Jewish Law.
My rights to bodily and genital integrity were violated by this ritual. My life was altered.
None of this was with my consent.
The bodily and religious rights of the child, matter here. The adults don’t have the right to use a child as an instrument of their religion.
We would not let Aztecs sacrifice another human for their observances, the same should be true of a child’s body parts. Adults should be allowed to circumcise themselves.
I will be very surprised if this comment is not censored. One can always hope.
December 4, 2013
Sorry to hear of someone who repudiated his Jewish heritage this way. I suspect, like the large majority of Jewsh men in America, the previous commenter had a brit milah but no sustained Jewish education and did not grow up in a family that observed Shabbat and Yom Tov or kept kosher. The overwhelming majority of Jews who grow up in observant homes would never think this way, as noted by a recent music video, Mohels, by Kol Ish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbHREE7qT8U Indeed, they are grateful for the mitzvah having been done at the proper time and for not having to undergo a far more painful operation as adults.
This is more than an attack on one mitzvah, albeit one which is equivalent to all the other mitzvot combined (Nedarim 31b). Note the previous commenter’s statement that “adults don’t have the right to use a child as an instrument of their religion. ” That would include not only circumcision, but also infant baptism, and even more significantly, religious education. Children do not “consent” to being raised in their parents’ religious traditions and community. Extending the logic of intactivists and other anti-religious zealots here, the right of children to be free from what they would consider “religious brainwashing” is surely more important than an insignificant and possibly harmful flap of skin. Religious education is surely far more “life-altering” than circumcision—which is why antisemites since Antiochus IV have also tried to ban Torah study as well, and especially parents teaching Torah to their children.
And comparing brit milah, which is our contribution to completing G-d’s work of creation, to human sacrifice is so disgusting it does not deserve to be dignified with a response.
December 13, 2013
Simcha Rueven, thank you for a wonderful clarification. Children must be guided in all things. This is an attack on parents teaching their children more than anything else.