SF Circumcision Bill Cut Off By Court

In the topsy-turvy world of San Francisco, almost any silly idea can be put on the ballot. Most recently, the Board of Stupidvisors decided it would be a very good thing to ban circumcision. After the Board received sufficient signatures to place the measure on the November ballot, Superior Court Judge Loretta M. Giorgi has cut it off.

Judge Giorgi shorted everyone by avoiding the religious issue entirely. Her ruling hangs on the California Business and Professions Code, which says that commonly-accepted medical procedures are the sole province of the state, and no municipality may pass an ordinance which conflicts with the state law. She concluded that "the evidence presented is overwhelmingly persuasive that circumcision is a widely practiced medical procedure." Therefore, banning the procedure at the municipal level is expressly preempted by the State Code.

Proponents of the ban had argued that circumcision is akin to male genital mutilation, regardless of what millions of Muslims and Jews might think. The fact that a substantial majority of American physicians consider the procedure efficacious and routine also did not deter the zealots. A group of doctors who think the banners should not be allowed to determine the proper ends of others, along with a coalition of Jews that claimed the ban was anti-Semitic filed suit to stop the proposed ordinance from reaching the ballot.

Georgi sliced up the officious intermeddlers' arguments by ruling on the Business and Professions Code grounds, saying: "It serves no legitimate purpose to allow a measure whose invalidity can be determined as a matter of law to remain on the ballot after such a ruling has been made." Those San Franciscans who believe that circumcision is the "most unkindest cut of all" [hat tip to Bill Shakespeare] will either have to seek a reversal of the judge's order at a higher level, or try to convince the entire population of the state to change the law. A similar ballot measure is pending in the City of Santa Monica, and the San Francisco judge's decision has no validity in the Superior Court of that district. So a separate ruling there might conflict with the one in San Francisco.

The responses to the ruling at the online versions of the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times fell basically into two camps. First, there were those who supported the judge's ruling, telling the banners to keep their hands off the private business of others. Second, there were the hysterics who apparently didn't understand either the proposed ordinance or the judge's ruling. One commenter said "let's circumcise the judge, and see how she likes it." Aside from the fact that female genital mutilation is a barbaric practice performed only in certain Muslim sects, and has no medical support whatsoever, it is equally important to note that the ordinance only addressed male circumcision. Another simply demanded "equality for circumcision."

Well, that's about it. So I'm going to cut this short.