# German appeals court decides against religious circumcision of children. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2012, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686 "2012-06-29T12:23:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/161 "2012-07-02T02:52:40Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Personally, I think chopping my foreskin off is a violation akin to rape. Thank you for insulting actual rape victims everywhere. Fuck, it’s a shame **Jack Dean Tyler** isn’t here anymore – he’d be having orgasms. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/162 "2012-07-02T04:49:41Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I’ve never met anyone IRL who was outraged about getting circumcised or insisted they were a victim because of it. > > It’s only on the internet that I run across people claiming that they’re victims That’s a absurdly ridiculous argument. Who is going to talk about this sort of thing openly in normal conversation? Of course you are going to see more open discussion on the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/163 "2012-07-02T05:04:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Thank you for insulting actual rape victims You’re welcome. Look, it’s a deeply personal sexually related violation. It’s both physical and psychological, but it isn’t typically remembered. It’s similar to women who are raped during a coma. Some women can brush it off if they don’t remember the experience. Some are scarred emotionally by the idea. In some ways they have it easier because there is no lasting physical mutilation. Physically speaking, some guys can ignore what they lost because they don’t have anything to compare it to. Some are more aware and have trouble letting go. Some haven’t lost anything but can’t imagine the idea of someone else chopping off a sensitive personal area of their body, without a really fucking good reason. And rape is a good metaphor, because no matter how horrible it is, and how deserving it is of punishment, every one has a different reaction to it. How would you feel about the woman who has been raped but isn’t deeply affected by it telling the woman who is devasted to “just get over it”? ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/164 "2012-07-02T05:09:03Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > That’s a absurdly ridiculous argument. Who is going to talk about this sort of thing openly in normal conversation? Of course you are going to see more open discussion on the Internet. Also there are a ton of cultural taboos surrounding men showing vulnerability, and admitting to being traumatized by something is seen as weakness. Is it a surprise circumcised men always feel the need to boast about how great their penis is, and how it doesn’t bother them a bit. To be any less defiant would be seen as unmasculine. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/165 "2012-07-02T05:32:43Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Thank you for insulting actual rape victims everywhere. Well I’m sorry. That was not my intent. People amputated a part of my sexual anatomy when I was an infant. I don’t quite know how else to characterize it. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/166 "2012-07-02T05:37:31Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Also there are a ton of cultural taboos surrounding men showing vulnerability, and admitting to being traumatized by something is seen as weakness. That’s a fair point, but I’m still pretty sure that the great majority of snipped guys have normal sexual functioning and don’t actually feel traumatized, even if there are a minority who do. Certainly the cut dicks I’ve run across have not been a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/167 "2012-07-02T05:39:47Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > That’s a absurdly ridiculous argument. Who is going to talk about this sort of thing openly in normal conversation? Of course you are going to see more open discussion on the Internet. People bitch about all sorts of things. Moreover, people, particularly in college love to hitch about being victims. However, I never hear people bitching about this IRL. It’s only on the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/168 "2012-07-02T05:46:51Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Is it a surprise circumcised men always feel the need to boast about how great their penis is, and how it doesn’t bother them a bit. To be any less defiant would be seen as unmasculine. You think circumcised men lie when they claim they enjoy sex?:dubious: I’m reminded of how tons of men on the Internet claim they’ve been falsely accused of rape or are terrified of women falsely accusing them of rape. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/169 "2012-07-02T05:58:32Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > That’s a fair point, but I’m still pretty sure that the great majority of snipped guys have normal sexual functioning and don’t actually feel traumatized, even if there are a minority who do. Certainly the cut dicks I’ve run across have not been a problem. If they haven’t had a problem with you running across their dicks, maybe they really have lost some sensation! ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/170 "2012-07-02T06:09:02Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > You think circumcised men lie when they claim they enjoy sex?:dubious: > > . No I don’t, not that someone circumcised at a few days old as anything to compare to. Just that it is likely many men who wish they had not been, or are bothered by it, won’t publically admit that. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/171 "2012-07-02T12:07:50Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Every damn time man, every…damn…time. > > You’d think circumcised guys were compelled to trumpet to the world how functional and wonderful their circumcised penises are! Well, mine is bigger than yours, so there! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/172 "2012-07-02T15:25:57Z")
The way I figure it is this: The anger and sense of violation are basically misplaced for the simple plain fact that no one was circumcised in a first world nation because their parents wished them harm or wanted to hurt them. You were circumcised because they either were going along with a social convention they were told was harmless, or because they made a conscious decision to make you a part of a community they care about, or because they made a conscious decision evaluating the minor but extant health benefits of circumcision. It was not because they wanted to hurt you and take away your sexual functioning, and it was not because it gave them pleasure and so they disregarded your autonomy. That naturally doesn’t mean I’m pro-circumcision (as I said upthread, I certainly understand annoyance or disappointment), it just means I think certain comparisons (like the rape one) are vastly overblown. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/173 "2012-07-02T16:36:47Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > The way I figure it is this: > > The anger and sense of violation are basically misplaced for the simple plain fact that no one was circumcised in a first world nation because their parents wished them harm or wanted to hurt them. You were circumcised because they either were going along with a social convention they were told was harmless, or because they made a conscious decision to make you a part of a community they care about, or because they made a conscious decision evaluating the minor but extant health benefits of circumcision. It was not because they wanted to hurt you and take away your sexual functioning, and it was not because it gave them pleasure and so they disregarded your autonomy. > > That naturally doesn’t mean I’m pro-circumcision (as I said upthread, I certainly understand annoyance or disappointment), it just means I think certain comparisons (like the rape one) are vastly overblown. Look at your quote above and imagine yourself saying it to a woman in the third world whose parents had her genitals mutilated. Just change a few words _mutatis mutandis_. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/174 "2012-07-02T16:51:26Z")
Sorry it took so long for me to get back here - my Internet time on weekends is limited, and I can’t always read through a ton of posts as accumulated here over late Friday - Saturday. Anyway… > [@](#): > > But does waiting until the child can choose mean that they…the child that is, are restricted in religious practice? Seems to me that if they are so young that they can’t make a meaningful and informed choice then they are also too young be considered as having any meaningful religious observance. In modern times, when we have no Temple sacrifices, there aren’t any actual commandments that the child can’t fulfill. Still, having the sign of the covenant on his body is good for him, in at least two concrete ways that I can find support for in Jewish rabbinic literature: 1) it serves as an ever-present reminder that he should be following the laws of the Torah (to the level that a minor of his age does), and 2) it brings the favor of G-d upon the nation as whole, and this minor benefits from such as part of the nation. > [@](#): > > But it does doesn’t it? unless every form of religious practice is allowed and I haven’t been informed. Rastafarians are not allowed to smoke their herbal cigarettes are they? As I understand it, the state needs to show a “compelling state interest” in order to place some form of burden on any religious practice. For example, not allowing certain rituals which involve drugs that are otherwise illegal is constitutional because there is a compelling state interest in preventing the trafficking of illegal drugs. Given that circumcised males do not seem to place any sort of burden on the state more so than uncircumcised males, I think that the American government or one of the states would be hard-pressed to find a compelling state interest in prohibiting the ritual of infant circumcision. > [@](#): > > This leads on from my previous point, I consider the right to religious freedom to stop well before the right to inflict a medically unecessary procedure on a non-consenting person. The principle of religious freedom means that no one gets to decide for you, or for the people for whom you are the decision-maker (or one of them) by proxy, whether or not a procedure is “necessary” for reasons that are outside the realm of the scientifically knowable. Guinastasia: > [@](#): > > What if you discover at birth that your child is a hemophiliac, or for some other medical reason, cannot be circumcised? If the child’s life will be endangered by the circumcision, then he is exempt from that commandment. Nonetheless, should the condition of its being life-threatening ever change, the child (or perhaps by that time an adult) has an obligation to get it done then. For example, I’m rather certain that in this day and age, there are ways to prevent hemophiliacs from bleeding to death if they get cut. A properly prepared hemophiliac can probably undergo circumcision without serious danger to his life. Perhaps this can’t be done for an infant, but the religious obligation can in such cases be fulfilled later. Novelty Bobble: > [@](#): > > Are you saying that subsequent interpretation of the religious texts means that the punishments required were not always carried out? Not quite. It means that there are many technicalities in halacha that would render a defendant not capitally guilty, and the Rabbis in question are expressing their confidence that should a capital case come before them, they’d care enough about the defendant to find a way that he could get off. This confidence does NOT mean that if in fact a defendant unquestionably met all capital punishment requirements that they would disregard halacha and refuse to kill him. Guinastasia: > [@](#): > > So you have to wait until your other kids die? That’s pretty messed up. Well, if there’s some indication of medical danger before the kid is circumcised, you hold off no matter what, without waiting for anyone to die. That particular law is, that is a baby is from all normal indications healthy enough for circumcision, but family history has indicated that there is some reason to worry that death-from-circumcision runs in the family, then the new kid is exempt. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/175 "2012-07-02T18:21:44Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Look at your quote above and imagine yourself saying it to a woman in the third world whose parents had her genitals mutilated. Just change a few words _mutatis mutandis_. I would say such a thing, if there were such a thing as “female circumcision” that had demonstrated minor health benefits and insignificant trauma, with no apparent loss of sexual function to the woman. Since there aren’t so far as I know any such procedures, all analogies with male circumcision are basically bullshit. I’m circumcised. It’s entirely possible I’ve lost some fractional percentage of my ability to feel sexual pleasure because of it. There is no universe in which that procedure is any way comparable to removing all or part of the clitoris, or sewing most of the vaginal opening shut, and frankly it just makes the anti-circumcision side of the debate look somewhere between ridiculous and blindly selfish to compare the two (or compare it with “rape”, as was also done upthread). ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/176 "2012-07-02T18:40:11Z")
> [@MyFactCheckBounced](#): > > A few responses: > > A German appeals court? **really?** I had enough trouble with this nonsense when it was a ballot initiative or somesuch in San Francisco. But a **German** appeals court? > > Okay, guys. I do not want to pollute a great vacuum-sealed philosophical discussion with an appeal to emotion, but… a **German** appeals court? > > Guess what? German law on Jewish practice is historically suspect. Forever. For freaking ever. > > Now, to the specifics of the decree, putting aside the fact that Germany is eternally disqualified from being taken seriously on the subject of circumcision: Let’s just get the typical well poisoning over with: Holocaust, Jews, Germany, Hitler, WW2, final solution, genocide, Himmler, Waffen SS, etc. etc. For fucks sake. If you think modern German courts are tainted by what happened 70 years ago any more than modern American courts are tainted by Jim Crow laws there’s something wrong with you. I see no reason why Jews nor Muslims should be treated by German courts with kid gloves because of what happened in WW2. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/177 "2012-07-02T19:27:44Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > If you think modern German courts are tainted by what happened 70 years ago any more than modern American courts are tainted by Jim Crow laws Well, there is the crack vs powered cocaine thing. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/178 "2012-07-02T20:00:31Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Well, there is the crack vs powered cocaine thing. > 🙂 Not to mention whenever Civil Rights cases or cases determining whether or schools or school systems are set up in a way that discriminates America’s previous policies are brought up and that’s especially true in the South. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/179 "2012-07-02T20:41:49Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > I think that the American government or one of the states would be hard-pressed to find a compelling state interest in prohibiting the ritual of infant circumcision. And yet if I decided to use a hole punch to remove the outer edges of my infant son’s ears (to protect from a common cause of skin cancer you understand) I’d be branded some kind of monster! I mean, I’d use a local anaesthetic. I’m not a barbarian. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686/180 "2012-07-02T20:46:26Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I’m not a barbarian. That’s a great set up, but I’d probably have the Moderators all over me. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-appeals-court-decides-against-religious-circumcision-of-children/626686.md?page=10)