OK, What Picture Would You Post----

---if you were writing an article about the future of circumcision in San Francisco? The loons in Crazy Town are just shy of having enough support to put an anti-circumcision initiative on the November ballot. This movement has been growing since my own son was born in 1972, and I gave serious consideration to the arguments against circumcision. In the end (no pun intended) I came down on the side of the practice for multiple reasons with which I will not embarrass my only son any more than I already have.

There is no medical or scientific argument that the procedure is inherently dangerous or harmful. There are times when it is medically contraindicated. There have been unfortunately too many stories of botched procedures, but setting a leg after a fracture can be dangerous if the proper procedures aren't followed. So it has really come down to a religious ritual for Jews and a personal decision for Christians.

European doctors are considerably less likely to perform the procedure, and considerably fewer parents choose the procedure than their American counterparts. That's largely cultural, and there's still a debate over why Americans choose the procedure so much more often. The debate ranges from Americans being overly-clinical and obsessed with cleanliness to a vast Jewish conspiracy.

San Francisco, on the other hand, has managed to turn the debate into a more personal version of its ban on toys in McDonald's Happy Meals. In a town that believes that you can't own a dog or cat, only become its guardian/companion, this latest outrage shouldn't surprise anyone. San Francisco is the crucible for nanny-statism, interference in parental rights, and bizarre ideas of how other people should behave. While abortion supporters cry "keep your hands of my body," they won't admit that the vast majority of abortions are baby-murders. But to them, that's trivial compared to the government's right to determine what's best for the babies that make it past the abortion mill. Preferably without parental interference in the cause du jour.

Even Jon Stewart called San Francisco a "nanny state" based on its banning of Happy Meal Toys. Since he is of Jewish descent, I wonder what his parents would have thought of a city that bans circumcision. The law provides that it would be a misdemeanor to circumcise a baby, and forbids the procedure for anyone under the age of eighteen. Trivializing the issue with false analogies, San Francisco Examiner contributor Lloyd Schofield says: "We feel this is a very harmful thing. Parents are guardians. They are not owners of children. It's a felony to tattoo a child."

Those same parents are the very ones that have to authorize any other surgical procedure because they are, well, the parents. But for the leftists who populate Crazy Town, parents have only the rights that the government grants them. Determination of all other rights is reserved for the government, and the ballot initiative supporters want to take that religious and/or medical decision away from the parents.

Children in general, and babies in particular, do not have the intellectual ability to make decisions for themselves. Thus, Americans have traditionally carved out an individual rights exception which says that the parents get to make those major decisions until the child is old enough to make intelligent decisions for himself. The same people who will not condemn female genital mutilation in Muslim lands feel they have the right to make a decision for the parents of male children in San Francisco. Female circumcision almost never serves any genuine medical purpose, and often does serious damage to the girl. Properly-performed infant male circumcisions have as many proponents in the medical field as opponents. So guess which one the left wants to eliminate.

We are expected to honor religious beliefs in regard to medical procedures in the caliphate, but trample on them in San Francisco. We are expected to be neutral about a medical procedure in Islamic countries that is worse than worthless, but forbid one that has the support or at least the neutrality of the vast majority of the American medical community. Why would the San Francisco government want to do this? Because it can. Any barrier put between parent and child is a step forward for government control of our children.

The government already intrudes into formerly strictly parental decisions such as what they eat, what games they can play, and what kind of medical care they should get. Increasing unionization and government intrusion over the past few decades have eroded the right of parents to participate in deciding what their children should learn. It was probably only a matter of time before some government would decide that parents should have no decision-making rights in the matter of a millennia-old semi-surgical procedure for their male babies.

The lefties are correct. Parents don't own their children. But they are their natural and historical protectors. The law must prevent child abuse, but only the anti-circumcision zealots consider the procedure to be child abuse. Forgetting the tattooing argument, let's try a different example. Ear-piercing is a semi-surgical procedure as well. So far the lefties have been fine with the ear-piercing which is largely cultural and no less dangerous than male circumcision. Ear-piercing in infants is allowed and even encouraged in certain American subcultures, and all that is required is parental approval. But something as deeply-religious as male circumcision must now be subjected to the will of the government while taking parental responsibility completely out of the picture.

In case you think this is another "only in San Francisco" story, just wait to see what happens if it passes. It will be coming to a hospital in your neighborhood next. Even if the ordinance is struck down in part on religious grounds, there is still the likelihood that if your religion doesn't specifically require male circumcision, the law may yet be upheld. Parental choice would be nullified for Christians, since there has been no religious requirement of circumcision since the time of St. Paul. Long live the nanny state, down with parental rights.