Germany Votes to Protect Circumcision
The long national nightmare just got shorter
December 12, 2012
After nearly six months of public debate, indictments, lawsuits, prohibitions, and other wrangling, German lawmakers affirmed the right of parents to have their sons circumcised. This ends the sad chapter for Germany’s four million Muslims and 100,000 Jews, who felt marginalized and demonized by the very public crusade against the religious rite.
It all started back in late spring when a court in Cologne branded the practice as harmful.
The Cologne court’s ruling provoked outrage in Israel, Turkey, the United States and elsewhere. It proved an embarrassment to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, painfully aware that postwar Germany can ill afford to be seen as supporting such a dangerous message of intolerance.
The good news come as Germany reaches the coldest part of the year when turtlenecks, while fashionable and practical, should not be compulsory.
Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.
