From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: _Smith_ and Religious Freedom (Was: Re: The Supreme Court . . .)
Summary: Freedom of Religion
Keywords: circumcision
Date: 27 Jan 93 21:39:54 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <C1HB6G.G6F@panix.com> eck@panix.com (Mark Eckenwiler) writes:

>In <14052@optilink.COM>, cramer@optilink.COM sez:

>># Do the laws allow police to interfere with peyote use?
>># [a previous poster] 

>>Not if it is being used in conjunction with the rites of the Native
>>American Church.  The recent bad Supreme Court decision was whether
>>an employer (in this case, a governmental agency) could fire someone
>>for peyote use as part of the NAC.  [Clayton Cramer]

>That was _Smith I_, Clayton, sort of. (The Court actually held that
>the fired employees couldn't collect unemployment benefits, but never
>mind.)  You evidently missed _Smith II_, in which the Court held that
>Oregon's criminal prohibition against peyote use passes constitutional
>muster, the free exercise clause notwithstanding.  [Mark Eckenwiler]

According to the February 1 issue of _National Review_, 

    "in France, . . . a Gambian woman has been jailed for performing
     clitoridectomies on two baby girls.  This traditional home surgery
     has become a big issue in Europe with the advent of millions of
     families from Africa and the Middle East.  The operation brings
     pain, bleeding, infection, and sometimes death; girls who survive
     it grow up unable to enjoy sexual pleasure (the basic purpose of
     the practice) and sometimes sterile. . . . Yet the operation is
     often performed by midwives at the request of mothers.  . . .
     Most tribal cultures regard it as the tribe's right to imprint
     its claim, painfully and indelibly, on the very bodies of its
     tiniest members."

In Egypt, the issue of "pain, bleeding, infection and sometimes death"
is dealt with by having the operation done by surgeons under sterile
conditions.  W. G. Browne, who was in the Sudan between 1792 and 1800,
supplies some interesting information in his narrative of his travels,
and describes the operation and its effects:

       "Mihi contigit nigram quandam puellam, qui hanc operationem
     subierat, inspicere; labia pudendi acu et fila consuta mihi
     detecta fuere, foramine angusto in meatum urinae relicto.  Apud
     Esne, Siout et Cairo, tonsores sunt, qui obstructionem novacula
     amovent, sed vulnus haud raro lethale evenit."

If female circumcision can be made safe through the use of modern
clinical precautions, there still remain the issues of diminution of
sexual pleasure and imprinting a culture's claim on the very bodies
of a culture's tiniest members.

How can we distinguish between male circumcision as practiced by 
Jews in France (which involves imprinting the Covenant of Abraham 
on the very members of the culture's tiniest bodies) , and female
circumcision (described in _NR_ as "clitoridectomy," which I take 
to mean _Tahurat Sunna_, as opposed to the more drastic _Tahurat
Farohin_, i.e., Pharaonic circumcision) as practiced by African
Muslims in France?

1)  Female circumcision is dangerous, whereas male circumcision is not.

    Then it would be OK if it were done under conditions that made it
    as rarely dangerous or lethal as male circumcision is.

2)  Male circumcision only *diminishes* sexual sensitivity, whereas
    female circumcision destroys it entirely.

    Who gets to judge whether a baby boy has the right to grow up
    without diminution of his sexual sensitivity, or whether a baby
    girl has the right to grow up able to experience sexual pleasure?
    Is this the Government's business, or is it up to the baby's
    parents to make that decision?

3)  Male circumcision is done with once and for all, whereas female
    circumcision requires an additional operation at the time  of
    the girl's marriage, as W. G. Browne describes:

       "Cicatrix, post excisionem clitoridis, parietes ipsos vaginae,
     foramine parvo relicto, inter se glutinat.  Cum tempus nuptiarum
     adveniat, membranum, a qua vagina clauditur, coram pluribus 
     pronubis inciditur, sponso ipso adjuvante.  Interdum evenit
     ut operationem efficere nequeant, sine ope mulieris aliquae
     expertae,

Like the Gambian lady in France?

               quae, scalpello partes in vagina profundis rescindit.

Ouch!

     Maritus crastina die cum uxore plemumque habitat; unde illa
     Araborum sententia, 'Lelat ad-dukhla mithl lelat al-futuh,'
     _i.e._, post diem aperturae, dies initus.  Ex hoc consuetudine
     fit us sponsus nunquam decipiatur, et ex hoc fit ut in Aegypto
     Superiori innuptae repulsare lascivias hominum parum student,
     dicentes, 'Tabusni wala takhurkani,' 

Wow!  Don't let the anti-natalist racists get hold of a translation 
of this, or else they'll be peddling _Tahurat Sunna_ on the streets of 
East Baltimore as they are presently trying to peddle "Norplant" there.

                                          sed quantum eis sit invita
     continentia, post matrimoniam demonstrant libidine quam maxime
     indulgentes."

     This last, of course, contradicts _National Review's_ statement
     that the "girls who survive it grow up unable to enjoy sexual
     pleasure."  One way to resolve the contradiction is to posit
     that the married ladies whom W. G. Browne describes were
     faking it.

     In any case, the fact that male circumcision is a one-time affair,
     while female circumcision requires the bloody ante-nuptial spectacle
     described above, ought to be a sufficient distinction that the 
     French authorities are justified in jailing this Gambian lady
     while leaving Jewish _mohalim_ unmolested.

4)   Male circumcision is the Covenant of Abraham, commanded by the
     G-d of the Bible, who is the real G-d, whereas female circumcision
     is a barbaric tribal practice (_National Review's_ story begins,
     "Are we still permitted to use the word 'barbaric'?  Apparently
     so."), with no Divine sanction.

     This distinction makes sense to me, but I doubt it will get very far
     with the "strict separationists" who make up the great majority
     of "misc.legal" posters.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

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