Jewish groups oppose circumcision ban in San Francisco

Jewish groups and others are up at arms over an attempt to outlaw male circumcision in San Francisco by putting the issue to a popular vote.

Self-described "intactivist" Lloyd Schofield has been collecting signatures for a voter initiative that would criminalize infant circumcision in the Californian city.

After two months of collecting names, he claims to be more than half way toward getting the 7,168 signatures he needs by late April to put the matter on the November ballot.

Schofield and a growing community of anti-circumcision activists say that infants should not be forced to participate in what is essentially culturally accepted genital mutilation.

They claim that the procedure can cause health risks and diminished sexual function and compare it to the clitoridectomies performed on girls in parts of Africa.

"This is a human rights issue," he said. "What you're doing is you're taking an infant and removing the most sensitive part of their body."

Jewish organizations have pledged to fight the measure should it be placed on the ballot. Anti-Defamation League director Daniel Sandman called Schofield's effort discriminatory and misguided.

"This is hurtful and offensive to people in the community who consider this a coveted ritual," he said.

Abby Porth of the Jewish Community Relations Council charged Schofield with wasting city resources for an inappropriate political stunt that was unlikely to become law.

"This is one of the most fundamental practices to our tradition of over 3,000 years," she said. "It's symbolic of our covenant with God."

Porth said the Jewish community would form a coalition against the initiative with medical professionals and Muslims, who also practice circumcision.

"It's very similar to those of the Jewish faith," said Omar Nawaz of the Bay Area-based Zaytuna College, one of the nation's only Muslim colleges. "It's a religious tradition and it's important for us."

Both pro- and anti-circumcision advocates make health claims, but the medical research does not firmly support either position.MORE

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Berlin bars Muslim from prayers at school

A German court has rejected a legal bid by a 16-year-old Muslim student to have the right to conduct prayers at his school, reports say.  The court in Berlin ruled on Thursday against Yunis’ bid to pray, stating that it would upset peace in the school, and abuse students’ rights to the entitlement of a calm and educational environment, Reuters reported.

The maintenance of an academic school environment takes precedence over the student’s right to religious observance, the appeals court said.  “The Islamic prayer ritual has a demonstrative character and serves as social control,” a Berlin Senate official said in favor of the ruling.

“This is a good day for the Berlin school,” school director Brigitte Burchardt said after the verdict.
She said the decision would reduce potential conflict that may arise in the school. Last year the same pupil had initially been given the right to pray once a day in the same school. This year a higher Berlin court overturned that judgment.more

France says “You wear Face Veil, No Public Services. . .”

PARIS – Mass transport, hospitals, post offices — these and all public services in France would be off-limits to Muslim women wearing face-covering veils if a parliamentary panel’s recommendations, released Tuesday, become law.

The panel’s No. 2 predicts such a ban by year’s end.

As envisaged by the 32-member multiparty panel, a woman seeking unemployment benefits or other state aid, for instance, would walk away empty-handed if she refused to uncover her face. She would also be denied entrance to the local town hall, the bus, the Metro and the university classroom.

A panoply of recommendations aimed at dissuading Muslim women from hiding their faces is contained in the report, which was drawn up after six months of hearings from experts, Muslim leaders and others. One of the other recommendations: denying resident cards and citizenship to women who wear all-encompassing veils.

However, the panel was bitterly divided over recommending a ban on face-covering veils on the street, and that was not among the 15 recommendations retained after a vote.

President Nicolas Sarkozy put the issue before the French in June when he told a joint gathering of parliament that face-covering veils “are not welcome” in France.

Only several thousand women in France are thought to wear burqa-style garments, usually pinning a “niqab” across their faces to go with their long, dark robes. Such veils are widely seen as a gateway to extremism and an attack on gender equality and secularism, a basic value of modern-day France.

“The all-enveloping veil represents, in an extraordinary way, everything that France instinctively rejects. This is the symbol of the enslavement of women and the banner … of extremist fundamentalism,” said Bernard Accoyer, president of the National Assembly,
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