I am all for not dispensing circumcisions like a ear exam prior to checking out of a hospital, but come on. Criminalizing religious rituals? Really, San Francisco? Hopefully, there are enough decent people left in that town to see the measure voted down, but as a native Pacific Northwesterner, I clearly have always had my suspicions about the Great Bear Republic to the south.
It would be easier for supporters to justify if they added a religious exception. Instead, full speed ahead into anti-religion and, with the addition of Foreskin Man (1) vs. Hasidic mohel to the fray, a decidedly anti-Semitic tone. Mr. Hess is a two-bit, libelous, smut-peddling demagogue trying to denigrate Jews and Judaism back to the Middle Ages. Backtrack all you want, Rudolf, you are a charlatan leading a thinly veiled attempt to remarginalize Jews in America. The Protocols by any other name would still be garbage. And let's try to tone down the rhetoric a little bit, shall we? Barbarism only seems bad if you, yourself are Roman, and neither of them practiced circumcision. Jeez, you'd think that someone trying to exploit historical misconceptions and hate practices would do a little research, first. That said, I look forward to Mr. Hess's new passion play wherein, for some reason though he was undoubtedly already snipped as a Jewish 8-day-old, an uncut Jesus is first brutally circumcised and then killed by us evil money grubbing Jews. Look for it in a theater near you in December 2012, with voiceovers by Mel Gibson.
Sadly, I grew up in a small political town run by an uneasy truce between the godless hippies and the evangelicals. Believe me, I know that I'm different and that my people are different and that you don't understand our customs. All I'm asking for is a little understanding. That's all.
I know plenty about other religions, their beliefs, practices, outlooks, scriptures. In fact, my hippie-dippie synagogue taught us one year of comparative religions as kids, you know, just in case we wanted to comparison shop. I also know plenty about science, mathematics, and logic. I can understand that it is a personal choice, based on personal experiences, to believe. What struck me most was the vitriol and hate spewed by some secularists. In my many comment wars on circumcision related posts this week I've been mocked, attacked, and derided for wanting to follow a religious custom that's preexisted the Ten Commandments, that preexisted my people's enslavement, that preexisted our namesake, Jacob/Israel. What is so hard to understand? I guess I forgot that once you decide to be secular, you don't need to actually have any arguments, just start attacking people for being stupid if they don't immediately agree with you.
The issue when fighting these monstrous pinkos is that they have an issue with belief itself. They have chosen their god (the great and glorious Skepticismos, lord of the question, supreme picker of nits, disbeliever in all) and are waging a vehement crusade against the Abrahamic one. I completely understand the point of not wanting to have every boy circumcised. If I smoke or drink enough I might be able to understand why the "rights" and "consent" of an eight day old should be consulted prior to the event (though this is arguably much tougher). Aging hippies are trying to deal a deathblow to the society of their forebears, and their pseudo-intellectual spawn are wreaking havoc on those of us who still espouse the sentiments of religious tolerance expressed by our Founding Fathers. In 1790, George Washington wrote to the people of the Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshat Israel (now better known as the Touro Synagogue of Newport, RI), saying:
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens. . . . May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.
Again, I'm not sure if appealing to a letter from the late-18th century, written by a bootlegging slaveholding Good Ol' Boy, will do much good to these Skepticismosites, but hey, I guess he never did anything to shape this country. All I'm saying, is let us live under our vine and fig tree and leave us the fuck alone!
(1) I realize for those of you who haven't seen this, it would be good of me to provide a link, but I don't want to give this guy any more traffic that his neo-Nazi brethren in Idaho can generate themselves. Do they have internet up there, yet?
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