Jewish groups are gearing up for a fight against an initiative to criminalize circumcision in San Francisco, which is now one step closer to the Nov. 8 ballot.
Activists behind the so-called “Male Genital Mutilation” initiative gathered more than the required 7,168 signatures. Signed petitions were submitted to the San Francisco Department of Elections on April 26.
According to their Facebook page, organizers submitted 12,265 signatures to the department, which has 30 days to verify and certify the petitions.
If passed by the voters, the measure would ban in San Francisco routine circumcision on any male under the age of 18. Some medical exceptions would be permitted, but none for religious purposes, meaning the Jewish ritual of brit milah would be outlawed, punishable by a $1,000 fine and/or prison.
The initiative’s latest progress has roused segments of the Jewish community, who plan to organize a campaign to defeat the measure. Muslims and the medical establishment are also expected to fight the measure.
“The proponents will have an uphill battle,” said Abby Michelson Porth, associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council. “Not only legally, but because [circumcision] is not viewed as genital mutilation, but in the Western world as a useful and widely acceptable practice.”
The JCRC plans to join forces with other organizations throughout the interfaith and medical communities to fight the initiative. Jewish groups Porth said were already on board include the Anti-Defamation League, the Northern California Board of Rabbis and the American Jewish Committee.
Porth said the campaign to defeat the measure would be waged on religious, constitutional and cultural grounds. Because the anti-circumcision measure provides for no religious exemption, that means “this ordinance targets religion,” according to Porth. “That’s what this measure would do if it passes.”
Daniel Sandman, the regional director of the Central Pacific Region of the ADL, views it as an infringement on basic rights. “Certainly the right to freely practice religious rituals that have been widely accepted for many years,” he said. “You also have issues of privacy, where the state is trying to impose decisions upon parents.”
Said Porth, “There are significant legal implications of a city government targeting religion.” The measure “will be seen by the interfaith community as a direct attack on religion and a direct attack on parents’ rights to make decisions about the religious upbringing of their children.”
Iftekhar Hai, founding director of United Muslims of America, and a member of the San Francisco Interfaith Council, predicted Muslims would ally with Jews to fight the bill.
“I don’t think it’s right,” he said. “It’s an assault on people’s religious beliefs. I think it will be a good idea to get inter-religious support [to oppose it] — Jews, Muslims and Christians.”
Lloyd Schofield, who spearheaded the ballot measure, could not be reached by press time. A fellow activist, Marilyn Milos, founder of the anti-circumcision group National Organization of Circumcision Resource Centers, known as NOCIRC, said her group did not directly push for the citywide ban initiative or work to collect signatures, but that she “wants to protect babies by any means.”
She stressed that her group focuses on public education rather than legal action, such as pressing for a ban. But she shares the bill’s goal of ending circumcision.
“It’s assault and battery,” she said of the procedure. “Do parents have a right to amputate parts of their baby’s bodies?”
At the same time, she said she understands how Jews and Muslims would have serious objections to a ban.
“I get that this is not easy,” said Milos, who is not Jewish. “It’s not my place to go into a Jewish community and say you shouldn’t be doing this. I do think Muslim and Jewish boys have every right to their wholeness of their bodies.”
Sandman wouldn’t speculate on the measure’s chances of success in November, but he does feel it makes “a mockery of the [political] system.”
“This targets parents’ rights to decide what’s best for their families,” he said. “This measure seeks to criminalize, with possible jail time, what has been one of the most sacred traditions in the Jewish and Muslim faiths. This is a time for different faiths to come together, for people who believe the government should stay out of the circumcision business and say, ‘Enough.’ ”