San Francisco’s Proposed Ban Stirs Jewish & Christian Cultural Memory
The city of San Francisco will have a circumcision ban on its upcoming ballot. For many of its supporters, this is a no-brainer. They simply liken male circumcision to female circumcision, denounce it as an ancient barbaric act, and that’s that. Any objection is written off as silly religious fervor at best or heinous fanaticism at worst. Often it’s some combination of the two.
Giving these supporters the benefit of the doubt, what we have here is a major miscommunication. It seems to me that most Americans today lack a large enough historical perspective to realize the ethnic, cultural, and religious sensitivities implied by this issue. They don’t know that this was an issue of (at times) intense persecution for Jews and Christians in ancient societies, and they certainly aren’t aware that the cultural memory hasn’t faded. In the same way that Muslims become uneasy every time Catholics employ military metaphors, in the same way atheists get nervous whenever fundamentalists challenge the separation of church and state, in the same way that African Americans exhibit tremendous fear when they see white police officers with dogs, so Christians and Jews have their Spidey-sense go off when their governments ban circumcision.
Yet our society as a whole fails to show any such compassion because Christianity to their eyes represents “The Man”—the hegemonic socio-religious institution that oppresses others. They fail to realize that it was not always this way, and in many places in the world certainly isn’t. They simply have no knowledge that Christians experienced severe persecution in the pre-Constantine Roman Empire nor that followers of Jesus continue to face murderous tyranny in places like China and Palestine. These people don’t grasp circumcision’s historic symbolism. They need to understand that these criticisms are felt far more on an emotional level than an intellectual level, though they’re certainly interrelated.
Of course, this is even more true for American Jews. No one needs to be reminded of their persecution in Reformation Switzerland, Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia, to name but a few examples. Not only that, but whereas christian theology no longer requires circumcision, Jewish theology certainly does. It remains the central sign of their beliefs and identify.
It seems clear these profoundly important issues aren’t being taken into consideration by the ban’s supporters. This I find particularly glaring given San Francisco’s professed cultural sensitivity and tolerance.
Carson,
Could you provide a link to somewhere that gives a rational explanation as to why San Francisco wants to ban circumcisions? If one exists of course.
Matt,
I can give you a link to Google maps, where you can plainly see that San Fransisco is 46.7 square miles, surrounded by reality.
Carson, For me this is indeed a complicated issue. When I became pregnant with my first child, we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl until the big day. We realized we needed to know before the birth how we felt about circumcision, and what the best choice for our family was on this topic. After much research, and thought, we decided not to circumcise. At the end of the day, I can’t really see any difference between female circ or male, or can I see any medical or health reason to standardly remove part of male or female.
Now, I do agree with you, this is a complicated issue for Jews and I understand they are under mandate to circ. I’ve also read that a Jewish right circ is not near has invasive or drastic as the general medical routine circ, but perhaps that is debatable. Perhaps we should take circumcision out of the medical sphere and leave it the responsibility of the religious community? Of course, we are still left with the culural disparity between male and female circ. And for me personally, I have the same reaction to both.
P.S. – The “profoundly important issues” that you say aren’t being taken seriously are the same arguments female circ. supporters claim. How do we reconcile this? Do we start allowing medical professionals to perform female circ. then? Is there a middle ground on this issue were we can remain consistent to both?