Snippety Crickets! Circumcision Ban on the SF Ballot

Haven't had a story that makes the Free Will brother ask, "why the hell do you stay in San Francisco?" lately, but this one'll do: a proposition to ban circumcisions within the city limits just qualified for the November ballot.

Proponents of the ban took 12,265 signatures to the Department of Elections today and should learn within a month whether 7,168 of them indeed came from registered city voters. If so, the city will have another one of its classic only-in-San Francisco measures to debate.

Wearing pins reading "May the foreskin be with you," the backers of the ban gathered at City Hall to turn in their signatures. Then they told reporters more than anybody ever wanted to know about the increasingly controversial procedure.

Jonathon Conte, a 29-year-old resident of the Alamo Square neighborhood, said he personally gathered 300 signatures and wasn't embarrassed to talk to strangers about his foreskin or the lack thereof.

"We have a lot of people in the city who believe boys deserve the same protection as girls," said Conte, who said he's angry that his parents had him circumcised as an infant.

"I discovered my sexuality and body had been impacted by this -- for no reason and without my consent or my input," he said. "To cut any body part off somebody who can't consent to me is just madness. You wouldn't cut off an ear or a finger or a nose."

The ban would outlaw circumcision in the city on any male under 18 years old - even for religious reasons. Breaking the law would count as a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and jail time for up to a year. Opponents say the ballot measure would never stand up in court because it violates the freedom of religion clause of the U.S. Constitution.

There's obviously a lot of hopeless cases out there trying to imprint their neuroses with the holy writ of law. Funnily, the most ardent anti-circ people I've met tend to be European who see circumcision as yet another American barbarity right up there with guns and Israel. Hey, if some jerk from Europe says it, it must be true. The "intolerance among the tolerant" meme has gained another bullet point.