San Francisco Cuts Circumcision Ban Proposal from CA November Vote

| Share

by editor

Happened:

In The News

If anyone wonders how weird things get on a ballot, here's one: A San Francisco County Superior Court judge has cut a measure that would prohibit male circumcision. It was slated for the November ballot.

Judge Loretta M. Giorgi ordered San Francisco's (CA) director of elections to remove the measure from San Fran's city ballot -- stating it is "expressly preempted" by the California Business and Professions Code and that, under statute, only California state is allowed to regulate medical procedures. Judge Giorgi also noted: "the evidence presented is overwhelmingly persuasive that circumcision is a widely practiced medical procedure." The judge also kind of noted that prohibiting male circumcision would also violate rights to free exercise of religion -- obviously affecting Jews and Muslims who call for circumcising males.

So how did the proposal to ban male circumcision get on the November 2011 ballot in San Francisco to begin with? It wouldn't exactly have happened in Los Angeles, California. It's unclear exactly where the proposal came from -- but proponents of the circumcision ban for CA were apparently claiming circumcision is "male genital mutilation" and wanted the surgical procedure to become a misdemeanor in the state. Apparently those proponents against circumcision managed to scrape together enough signatures to put a circumcision ban on the ballot -- up for a vote, that's not going to occur.

In June 2011, a group of doctors and community groups, including Jewish and Muslim participants, sued to get the proposed circumcision ban off the ballot -- stating such a law would be anti-Semitic and also violated state law.

Mr Lloyd Schofield, spokesman and proponent for the ban on circumcising men claims disappointment over the San Francisco, California, judge's ruling. "This to us is an extraordinarily preemptive and expensive action before the citizens of San Francisco even got to vote," Schofield claims. He also claims an appeal is a possibility.