Over the next days I’ll amuse myself reading editorials and op-eds and lunatic comments about the “outrageous” and “antisemitic” German court decision that gives a child’s right to physical inviolability a higher legally standing than its parents’ right to freedom of religion.
The District Court of Cologne decided that ritual circumcision for boys is a criminal act. This of course incenses those who set their personal religious believes above universal individual rights.
The court judged against a doctor who had performed the procedure, which led to complications, an a four year old boy. Cue the outrage:
The head of the Central Committee of Jews, Dieter Graumann, said the ruling was “an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination”.
The judgement was an “outrageous and insensitive act. Circumcision of newborn boys is a fixed part of the Jewish religion and has been practiced worldwide for centuries,” added Graumann.
“This religious right is respected in every country in the world.”
Well Mr. Grauman, the right to burn witches was also once”a religious right respected in every country in the world”. Some even saw it as a religious duty. But opinions on human rights versus religious rights have, thankfully, changed over the centuries.
Thousands of young boys are circumcised every year in Germany, especially in the country’s large Jewish and Muslim communities.
And this judgement now criminalizes these child mutilation. That will of course not immediately end them but it is an important step towards that aim.
BTW: I find it funny how the Telegraph writes of “large Jewish and Muslim communities” in Germany when less than 200,000 Germans (0.25%) are of Jewish heritage while over 4 Million (5%) are of Muslim heritage.
The boy in the case the court judged was a Muslim child. Why then is there no Muslim voice in the Telegraph piece but only a quote from the speaker of the likudnik Central Committee of Jews?
Various religious groups in Germany, of all major faith, have condemned the judgement and have thereby proven their inherent backwardness. But reading through German online comments some 80% of the people agree with the court.
Like them I am delighted by this judgement. It shows that there still is some progress in the German society towards the implementation of basic universal rights.