Religious groups say proposed circumcision ban is attack on religious freedom, but ignore a child's right to be free from religion

Globe and Mail   -  Canada     June 10, 2011

Russell Crowe launches Twitter tirade: Circumcision is ‘barbaric’

DAVE MCGINN


Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe is not a fan of circumcision.

“Circumcision is barbaric and stupid. Who are you to correct nature?” Crowe tweeted on Thursday. “Is it real that God requires a donation of foreskin? Babies are perfect.”

Crowe went on the tirade after one of his Twitter followers asked whether he should get his son circumcised.

Then, Crowe appealed to his Jewish friends, including the director Eli Roth, to end the traditional practice of circumcising children.

“I love my Jewish friends, I love the apples and the honey and the funny little hats, but stop cutting your babies,” he wrote. “I will always stand for the perfection of babies. I will always believe in God, not man’s interpretation of what God requires,” he added. “Last of it, if you feel it is your right to cut things off your babies please unfollow and f--k off; I’ll take attentive parenting over barbarism.”

Not surprisingly, the messages have landed Crowe in hot water. His tweets have been deleted, and early Friday morning the actor apologized to anyone he may have offended.

“I have a deep and abiding love for all people of all nationalities. I’m very sorry that I have said things on here that have caused distress. My personal believes aside I realize that some will interpret this debate as me mocking the rituals and traditions of others. I am very sorry.”

Roth has been defending Crowe on his Twitter feed since the scandal broke, saying it was just a joke and that Crowe is “NOT antisemitic.”

This article was found at:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/russell-crowe-launches-twitter-tirade-circumcision-is-barbaric/article2055924/

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CNN   June 10, 2011

San Francisco's proposed circumcision ban galvanizes religious opposition

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor

(CNN) - The nation’s largest evangelical Christian umbrella group has come out against San Francisco’s proposed circumcision ban, evidence that the voter initiative is beginning to galvanize national religious opposition.

Thursday’s announcement from the National Association of Evangelicals was noteworthy because unlike Jews and Muslims, Christians are not religiously mandated to practice circumcision.

“Jews, Muslims, and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Biblical circumcision begins with Abraham,” said National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson. “No American government should restrict this historic tradition. Essential religious liberties are at stake."

"The proposed ban violates the First Amendment’s guarantee to exercise one’s religious beliefs," Anderson said in a statement.

How much of a national issue the ban becomes is yet to be seen. An effort to put a circumcision ban on the ballot in Santa Monica, California was abandoned last week.

Many Jewish and Muslim groups have come out against San Francisco’s proposed ban on the procedure that removes the foreskins of infant boys.

Jewish groups have suggested anti-Semitic motives behind the ban. Here’s Nancy J. Appel, associate regional director for the Anti-Defamation League:

This is a sensitive, serious issue where good people can disagree and which the Jewish community feels is an assault on its values and traditions going back thousands of years and centered in the Hebrew Bible.

And here’s influential Los Angeles Rabbi David Wolpe:

Some involved are simply opposed to religion (there are after all some misguided Jews arguing for the ban as well), some wish to target both Muslims and Jews. But can anyone doubt that there are anti-circumcision advocates who seize on this as a chance to hurt Jews and the Jewish tradition?

Many Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, alleged that a comic book called “Foreskin Man,” created by the proposed San Francisco ban’s author,draws on centuries-old stereotypes about Jews. [see related articles links below]

Just as the National Association of Evangelicals did Thursday, some Muslim groups have called the ban an attack on religious freedom:

A ban that specifically targets a religious practice of Muslims and that has been proven to be medically beneficial is a violation of First Amendment rights that guarantees all Americans the right to religious freedom.

The proposed ban would make it "unlawful to circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis" of anyone 17 or younger in San Francisco.

Violators could be jailed for a year or fined up to $1,000.

The group that drafted the ban's language says the procedure has adverse physical and psychological effects and likens it to female genital mutilation, a claim that doctors generally reject.

In November 2010, CNN reported that medical evidence had shown mixed risks and benefits of circumcision:

Apart from the San Francisco proposal, circumcisions are under scientific scrutiny.

While widespread in the United States, circumcision rates could be falling, according to recent surveys. About 65 percent of American male infants born in hospitals were circumcised in 1999, according to latest data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While nationally the circumcision rate has remained steady, the most dramatic decline occurred in the West, where it fell from 64 percent in 1974 to 37 percent in 1999.

Earlier this year, there were unconfirmed estimates that the circumcision rate had fallen to fewer than half for boys born in U.S. hospitals, The New York Times reported last summer, citing a federal report at the International AIDS Conference.

The American Academy of Pediatrics task force on circumcision has been reviewing recent research before it issues an official new position on the issue, probably next year, one panel member said.

"In the past, we've said newborn circumcision has benefits and risks," Dr. Douglas Diekema, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington, told CNN last year. "Given the fact that neither the risks nor benefits are particularly compelling, this is a decision to be made by parents."

This article was found at:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/10/san-franciscos-proposed-circumcision-ban-galvanizes-religious-opposition/

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TIME  -  June 13, 2011

San Francisco's Circumcision Ban: An Attack on Religious Freedom?

By Adam Cohen



In the 1960s and '70s, the San Francisco Bay Area was where the counterculture really started — the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury, gay rights in the Castro. Today, the Bay Area is challenging the larger culture in a new and controversial way: there will be a referendum on the ballot in November that would make it the first major city in the U.S. to outlaw circumcision.

The San Francisco debate over circumcision initially centered on the value of the procedure itself — opponents call it barbaric, supporters point to its long tradition and say it prevents disease. But increasingly the debate is becoming one about religion, in which critics accuse backers of the referendum of bigotry and insist a ban would violate the First Amendment's religious freedoms.

There is plenty of reason to oppose the ban on its own merits. There is no need for a law: if people do not believe in circumcision, they should not have it done to themselves or their children. And even if there were to be a circumcision ban, this one is poorly constructed because of the well-founded religious objections that are being raised.

The anticircumcision debate began in April when a group of self-proclaimed "intactivists" — people who believe strongly that infant boys have a right to keep their foreskins intact — submitted enough signatures to put a circumcision ban on the ballot. The intactivists have taken up the language of international human rights: they are fighting, they say, for "genital autonomy" and "male-genital-integrity rights." Framed this way, it seemed like an appropriately earnest next step for a city that last year banned any kind of Happy Meal that paired toy giveaways with fast food.

The intactivists argue that circumcision needlessly inflicts pain on newborns, and they compare it to female genital mutilation — which is, in fact, a far more serious procedure. (Female genital mutilation can produce severe harm, including infertility and an increased risk of newborn deaths.)

Supporters of circumcision argue that there is a long tradition behind it, both religious and nonreligious, and that the pain involved is fleeting. They also say circumcision has proven health benefits. Removal of the foreskin has been found to help prevent the spread of HIV and other infections. In clinical trials in Africa, the incidence of HIV infection was 60% lower in circumcised men. The World Health Organization has said circumcision is an important component in fighting HIV infection.

Still, the drafters of the San Francisco referendum could have avoided the religious issue — and kept the focus on the harms and benefits of circumcision — if they had included an exception for circumcisions done for religious reasons. Jews, whose religious traditions require male children to be circumcised eight days after birth, and Muslims, who also practice circumcision, are a small part of the city's population.

Instead, the referendum expressly states that the ban would apply equally to religious circumcisions. If it passes, Jewish parents in San Francisco who hold a traditional bris, or circumcision ritual, could be sentenced to a year in jail.

This strict policy certainly seems insensitive. Jews who circumcise their sons trace the tradition back thousands of years. It is a sign, they believe, of a covenant with God, and an affirmation that the Jewish people will survive. There are accounts of circumcisions performed in the direst of circumstances, including in concentration camps. The intactivists aren't swayed by such arguments and insist it's gone on long enough.

Claims of insensitivity, however, have recently turned into charges of outright anti-Semitism. One of the referendum's key supporters has written a comic book, Foreskin Man, that portrays a blond, Aryan-looking superhero doing battle with "Monster Mohel." (Mohels are people trained to perform ritual Jewish circumcisions.) The bearded, prayer-shawl-wearing mohel leers manically at defenseless infants. As one rabbi blogger put it, "Hey San Francisco, 1930's Germany Called — They Want Their Anti-Semitic Propaganda Back!"

Jews and Muslims are not the only religious groups opposing the ban. The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 45,000 churches, declared last week that while their faith neither requires nor forbids circumcision, "Jews, Muslims and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Circumcision begins with Abraham. No American government should restrict this historic tradition."

If the referendum passes, it is unclear whether it would survive a constitutional challenge. The First Amendment protects people against laws that unduly interfere with their religious rituals. The question is, How would the courts see this particular interference? In 1972, the Supreme Court upheld the right of Amish parents to not send their children to school past the eighth grade. Yet more recently, it held that the "free exercise" clause does not protect Native Americans who want to engage in ritual use of peyote, an illegal drug. Under the logic of the peyote case, the ban could well survive. The ban could also be challenged under California's state constitution, which might contain broader religious protections than the U.S. Constitution.

On one level, the stakes in the San Francisco vote are small. If the referendum passes, parents can easily take their children out of the city to be circumcised. The danger, though, is that intactivism could spread — and that more localities, and eventually states, will enact bans.

On the other hand, the intactivist movement could come to a quick end. Last week, an activist who had been collecting signatures to put a similar referendum on the ballot in Santa Monica, Calif., announced that she was halting her effort because, she said, a cause that was not intended to be about religion had become a religious issue.

Cohen, a former TIME writer and a former member of the New York Times editorial board, is a lawyer who teaches at Yale Law School. Case Study, his legal column for TIME.com, appears every Monday.

This article was found at:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2077240,00.html

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Measles killed 164,000 children last year and maimed many more so failing to vaccinate children is criminal

Globe and Mail - Canada June 8, 2011

The return of measles: Where did we go wrong?

by André Picard



Welcome to the 1960s. Not in a cool, retro way but in the “how have we failed so miserably to make progress?” way.

Measles is back.

In recent weeks, there have been more than 250 cases of the dreadful childhood disease in Quebec. The outbreak was sparked by vacationers returning from France, which is in the midst of a measles epidemic, as is Britain.

As a result, there are small but ever-larger outbreaks popping up all over Europe and the Americas. Measles is highly infectious and easily spread. It could well be coming soon to a community near you.

This, of course, should not be happening. We’ve had a cheap and effective measles vaccine since 1963.

The disease had virtually disappeared in Canada and the rest of the developed world, and there were dramatic reductions in the developing world, to the point where last year there was beginning to be serious discussion about eradication.

Where did we go wrong?

The problem is that vaccines only work if people are vaccinated. But, increasingly, parents in the Western world are not getting their children vaccinated, or fully vaccinated.

Why would you deny your child protection against an unpleasant and potentially deadly disease?

Measles does kill; last year it claimed the lives of an estimated 164,000 children worldwide. That number has dropped dramatically since 2000, however, when it was close to 800,000. Why? Vaccination.

In the developing world, where they see the ravages of measles (and other infectious diseases) every day, parents are clamouring for immunization.

In the developed world, ignorance is bliss. We have grown unaccustomed to seeing the itchy red rash and forgotten that measles was once a leading cause of blindness, deafness and mental retardation. Before vaccination about one in 3,000 infected children died of measles, close to 100 a year in Canada.

Today, there is a small minority of parents who refuse vaccination for “religious reasons,” dubious interpretations of scripture. The handful of measles cases that usually occur in Canada tend to spring up in Hutterite communities or, as occurred recently, in some fringe Hasidic sects near the Quebec-New York State border. In Canada, we are too polite and politically correct to say so, but that’s the reality.

Yet, religious refuseniks are being eclipsed by a much more worrisome emerging group, parents in mainstream society who eschew routine childhood immunization for a number of half-baked reasons: fear that vaccines can cause autism, the belief that there are “natural” alternatives to Big Pharma products, a belief that their children are not at risk, and a romanticizing of natural immunity. (Read: Let kids get sick and develop antibodies instead of stimulating antibodies with immunization.) Virtually all the children infected in Quebec, like those in France, were not fully immunized against measles – meaning they did not get the recommended two doses of measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.

To find the source of this problem, you can follow the itchy red dots back to Andrew Wakefield, the charlatan who concocted the bogus theory that measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination was responsible for the rise in autism. The ultimate irony, of course, is that Dr. Wakefield did so, in part, because he was trying to market his own measles vaccine.

But let’s not give Dr. Wakefield too much credit. He is merely a symbol and a by-product of a much more fundamental problem: ignorance borne of health illiteracy.

In modern society we are, paradoxically, increasingly reliant on science and technology but increasingly ill-informed about science.

Worse yet, in the midst of a communications revolution that has brought us Google, Facebook, Twitter and who-knows-what-else to come, we are not teaching people (our children in particular) how to process information and how to interpret evidence.

On our iPads, BlackBerrys and laptops, we have a virtual Library of Alexandria times 100 at our fingertips. Yet we don’t know how to sort the wheat from the chaff. As a result, there are educated people who routinely embrace theories that are biologically implausible and predicated on massive conspiracy theories.

That leaves us vulnerable – to measles and much more.

The education system is failing us in this regard. And so too is public health, which has failed to update its message and methods for communicating effectively in the 21st century.

It’s no longer enough to say “vaccination is good” and expect everyone to dutifully fall into line for shots.

You have to actively promote the benefits and, just as importantly, rebut the nonsense circulated by anti-vaccinationists and other promoters of so-called alternative treatments – usually costly, unproven and largely useless herbal concoctions.

Parents want the best for their children. They deserve the best public health information.

What they need to hear is this: Yes, there are occasional but rare reactions to vaccines.

But the disease is far worse. In a large post-Olympics outbreak of measles last year in B.C., about 60 per cent of those infected required medical care, including 20 per cent who were hospitalized; one person ended up in intensive care with a life-threatening swelling of the brain.

Measles is not a mundane illness. And failing to vaccinate children is not a victimless crime.

This article was found at:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/andre-picard/the-return-of-measles-where-did-we-go-wrong/article2052432/

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Oregon Senate votes to give equal rights to children of religious parents and end faith healing as a legal defense to murder

The Register-Guard    -  Oregon       May 24, 2011

Oregon Senate votes to end faith healing murder defense

Parents could be charged with first-degree manslaughter or murder if the law takes effect

BY TAMI ABDOLLAH | The Associated Press

SALEM — The Oregon Senate voted Monday to eliminate faith healing as a legal defense to murder after repeated deaths of children in a local church community.

The Senate voted 25-5 to approve the measure. It was drafted largely in response to the 2008 deaths of children among members of the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, who rely on spiritual treatments instead of medical care.

“The bottom line is that children in Oregon ought to be seeing the kind of health care they need to live, thrive and survive,” said Republican Sen. Bruce Starr of Hillsboro, who sponsored the bill.

Under the measure, prosecutors can seek first-degree manslaughter or murder charges against parents whose children died because they were treated solely with faith.

An Oregon City couple that belongs to the church stands trial this week on criminal mistreatment charges for failing to seek medical care for their infant daughter, now 1½-year old. Jury selection begins today in the case of Timothy and Rebecca Wyland, according to Greg Horner, chief deputy district attorney of Clackamas County. [see related articles links below]

Two other couples from the church have gone to trial. In both cases, the sick children weren’t taken to a doctor but instead were anointed with oil while the family prayed.

Jeff and Marci Beagley were convicted last year of criminally negligent homicide in the 2008 death of their teenage son and sentenced to 16 months in prison. [see related articles links below]

Raylene and Carl Brent Worthington were found not guilty of second-­degree manslaughter in the death of their 15-month-old daughter. Carl Brent Worthington was convicted on a lesser charge of criminal mistreatment and served two months in jail. [see related articles links below]

Attorney Mark Cogan, who represents Timothy Wyland, declined to comment on the bill or to discuss specifics in the case. Cogan also represented Carl Brent Worthington.

The families are members of a small Oregon church that has roots in Kansas but is now based in Oregon City. The church’s small cemetery, not far from the end of the Oregon Trail, has row after row of headstones marking children’s graves.

A listed phone number for the Followers of Christ Church was busy continuously Monday.

The measure, House Bill 2721, expands a 1999 law that eliminated faith healing as a defense from some charges of manslaughter, criminal mistreatment and nonpayment of child support.

It is designed to apply rules equally to all parents whose children die because they didn’t get medical care. Current law makes it tougher to convict parents who do not provide a child with medical care for religious reasons than those who don’t for reasons such as neglect.

“These crimes are based upon the premise that a parent has a legal duty, and they’re failing to provide, whatever it is, medical care or physical care,” Horner said.

Republican Fred Girod of Stayton spoke strongly against the bill, calling it “lousy policy.” He said it needed to be reviewed for the cost and impact on the budget.

Minimum penalties for certain cases considered murders would go from 120 to 300 months in prison and cost an additional $21.88 per day for a temporary prison bed, according to the fiscal impact report.

If the measure becomes law, it means a person could face the same level of punishment as “someone who goes into a liquor store and shoots someone in a robbery,” Girod said. “This is going to the extreme.”

The Oregon House unanimously approved the bill in March with a 59-0 vote. It now returns to the House for vote on changes that would make the bill take effect immediately.

This article was found at:

http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/26286192-41/oregon-bill-care-church-faith.html.csp

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Criminal mistreatment trial begins for faith healing parents of baby who may go blind from massive growth on eye

ABC News   -  May 26, 2011

Oregon Baby May Go Blind Because of Faith-Healing Parents

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES



Oregon doctors have said that Alayna Wyland, an 18-month-old with a massive growth covering her left eye, may go blind because her parents refused to get her medical treatment on religious grounds.

Today jury selection continues in the trial of Timothy and Rebecca Wyland, who have been charged with first-degree criminal mistreatment of their child, only days after the state House passed a bill to be tougher on faith-healing parents.

The Wylands, who are 43 and 22, respectively, and are members of the Followers of Christ Church, told authorities they believed that prayer and anointing oils would heal their daughter's hemangioma, an abnormal growth of blood vessels that was occluding her vision.

In the past two years, Oregon's Clackamas County has prosecuted two other couples from the same church whose children died from untreated ailments. One, Jeff and Marci Beagley, were convicted of criminally negligent homicide last year and sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Their 16-year-old son, Neil, died of complications from an untreated urinary tract blockage. [see related articles links below]

"With an adult who refuses medical help, it's not a problem -- it's one of the freedoms we have in this country," said Gordon Melton, director of the California-based Institute for the Study of American Religions. "But if it's a child, the state has an interest in the child remaining healthy and becoming an adult. The court can step in and assume parental control."

Followers of Christ is an independent evangelical church that emerged in the 19th century and now has about 5,000 to 10,000 members, according to Melton.

"They are decentralized and have been particularly strong in Indiana and Oklahoma and along the East Coast," said Melton. "They have congregations scattered abroad and seem to function with an informal leadership of elders."

"The local church is important and the group has been tied together by an understanding about not using medicine," he said.

Melton was a court witness in a similar religious defense case in Oregon where a child died of meningitis. By the time the state intervened, "It was too late," he said. "It becomes deadly very quickly."

About 300 children die a year at the expense of their parents' religious beliefs, according to the Iowa-based organization, Children's Healthcare is Legal Duty, a group that advocates for tough penalties against those who seek exemption from child abuse laws.

Under Oregon law, parents have a "legal duty" to provide care for their children, and those who "knowingly withhold physical care or medical attention," can be prosecuted, according to Michael Regan, senior deputy district attorney in Clackamas County.

Child welfare officials reported the Wylands, who said they would not seek medical care for their daughter unless it was court-ordered, according to Regan. The baby was taken into state custody last July and has been treated with medication. It is not clear if vision will ever develop in that eye, he said.

The Wylands' lawyer, John Neidig did not return calls from ABCNews.com. In 2009, he defended Raylene Worthington , another Oregon City mother who was charged in the death of her 15-month-old daughter Ava, who had pneumonia and a blood infection that could have been treated.

She and her husband Carl, who belonged to the Followers of Christ Church, were found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter. Carl Worthington was convicted on a lesser charge of criminal mistreatment and sentenced to 60 days in jail.  [see related articles links below]

That church was the focus of a series of court cases in the state in the late 1980s and early 1990s that led to restrictions on religious shield laws, removing faith healing as a defense in cases of negligent homicide and manslaughter.

Now, if the Oregon House follows the Senate's action earlier this week, religious beliefs "would not be a defense for harm to a child for any crime," according to Regan of the district attorney's office.

Some of the religions that have restrictions on medical care include Christian Scientists and Jehovah's Witnesses, who object to blood transfusions, and many smaller fundamental Christian sects.

The history of laws honoring faith healing goes back to 1974, when the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare first required states to have clauses in their child abuse and neglect legislation that permitted exemption from prosecution on religious grounds. In 1983, the federal government allowed states to repeal these clauses.

In 1994, Oregon compromised with Christian Scientists and allowed some exemptions. In 2001, Colorado eliminated its exemption after Amanda Bates, 13, died from diabetes and gangrene.

Since 2001, the Academy of American Pediatrics formally opposed exemption laws.

Thirty States Have Religious Shield Laws

Today, 30 states still allow some form of religious shield. Some state laws exempt parents only if their children are faced with a non-life threatening condition or disease.

"Of the more than 2,000 laws dealing with religion can be traced back to Christian Scientists," said Melton. "Other groups have ridden on this. Most of these are First Amendment cases and they go back to Mormon laws in which the court decided that freedom of expression is absolute, but freedom of action is not."

Americans cannot perform ritual murder or do illegal drugs in the name of religion, he said, though there are some highly prescribed exceptions among Native Americans and use of traditional hallucinogens.

But some medical ethicists see problems with eliminating all religious exemptions.

Dr. Ray Koons, an internist and member of the medical ethics committee at the University of California Irvine, admits these stories are "painful" to hear and "no one wants to lose a child."

"The question is, what rights do we have and what rights do they have?" he asked.

"We are outsiders," said Koons. "But the parent who speaks for the child may say, 'If God wants my child to die anf my child will be blind, this is God's will. Our moral conflict is how can we make someone understand our point of view? But to get someone to change their mind, you have to listen to the other side."

His colleague at UC Irvine, Felicia Cohn, who is also bio-ethics director for Kaiser Permanente of Orange County, asks, "What principle are you willing to sacrifice to maintain a child's health?"

Cohn worked with a family who were Jehovah's Witnesses and refused a life-saving blood transfusion for their child, so the hospital got an order.

"Unless there are compelling reasons, a child cannot make choices about their religious beliefs," she said. "The interests of the state in maintaining the child's health overrides their religious preferences."

Sometimes parent are angry and hostile when they lose their rights, but often there is a sense of relief, according to Cohn.

"The parents were very happy the child was well, but they were concerned about their religious community and whether they would be shunned," she said. "We brought in their hospital liaison committee to help."

Working closely with religious communities to learn which treatments are acceptable and which are not can go a long way to helping children and their parents who have strong religious convictions.

"Some are very strict and it still won't be acceptable to the family, but most are more temperate and recognize that if it's done by court order, the parent stood firm," said Cohn. "When you tell a parent their child is sick, most times they will do anything to save their child."

This article was found at:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/baby-alayna-wyland-blind-religious-parents-refused-medical/story?id=13687650

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