Baby Boys Have the End of Their Penis Cut Off for the Worst Possible Reasons

Tim King and Agron Belica say ENOUGH!
We must change the 'penile code' we live under.

Courtesy: haroldxkira.deviantart.com

(SALEM / BOSTON) - I am increasingly discovering the effectiveness of addressing subjects without venting anger or opinion; the approach has the capacity to reach people who are otherwise locked in a mindstep pattern that prevents them from seeing the other side. However there's no chance I can put that good practice into play for this article, still I thought it was good to mention.

Do we keep saying 'circumcise' for the sake of political correctness?

Here is what I have to say: Baby boys have the end of their penis cut off for the worst possible reasons and it is unnatural and unimaginably painful; a surprising number of babies die each year from the procedure.

Just think about that for a second.

We can get into the origin; the way a popular British writer in the 1850's told parents that this ancient ritual with its roots in Jewish slavery, would discourage their boys from masturbating. After all, that will make them go blind... so they steadfastly believed then.

But it is only a side note that penis trimming is not a western practice.

This practice was first forced upon Jewish people in Biblical times to distinguish them as slaves. This ritualistic hacking; through any number of ugly methods, including the use of human teeth... the end of the penis off, didn't end with slavery. Instead it has become a cosmetic and psychological issue because Americans largely see the uncircumcised penis as less attractive. It is a sad reality.

People will object at this point and say, 'It isn't the end of the penis that is cut off, it is the foreskin' when in fact the foreskin is the end of the penis so as long as we keep it factual, it is the end of the male sexual organ and nothing short of that.

As referenced, this bizarre and barbaric practice infiltrated British culture through parental fear and naturally it found its way across that pond we call the Atlantic. It is like so many other traditions ranging from the silly... like believing that masturbation causes blindness; to the tragic, like racism, that die very hard in this country.

I had a clue from a pretty young age that something didn't make sense. Growing up in LA, I was the unusual one on the junior high showers not just for being Caucasian, (there were only a handful of us at Gage Jr. High in Huntington Park, Ca.) but also because I was circumcised. Most of the Hispanic kids I grew up around managed to avoid going under the knife.

Tim King & Agron Belica, July 2012- Baltimore.

As my dear friend and fellow Salem-News.com team member Agron Belica in Boston so effectively communicates in Song for Intactivists: Circumcision is Child Abuse on the Highest Level,. In a nutshell, it is a terrible life-changing procedure that is medically unnecessary.

Babies are not capable of consenting to this barbaric, painful procedure performed with something called a 'Gomco Clamp'. They can always choose to have the procedure later in life if they so wish.

The ultra fascinating and knowledgeable Dr. Phillip Leveque, who writes for Salem-News.com, recalls the sounds of babies screaming from circumcision as having been worse than those of men injured on the battlefield during World War Two, and he would know since was a frontline Infantry soldier in the war before becoming a doctor.

As an experienced journalist, this is the part of modern society in the U.S. that confounds and defies my understanding. Males who are circumcised lose thirty percent of the tissue that provides sexual sensation. Girls or women who are circumcised lose it completely. The world decries what is known as FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) yet mutilating the genitals of male babies they accept it without question? So 30% is OK?

Do we not treasure our infants and the lives they are born to enjoy as complete human beings? Intact is how nature intended males to be, not sliced off at the end like a meaningless object.

We can acknowledge how and when the western Christians first began to force circumcision upon their children, but that does not account for what allows this to take place in a modern age.

It is a cultural, sexual, physical and psychological burden carried by males that should have ceased long ago.

Let's review this... you treasure them during the pregnancy; you go through proper prenatal care; dad is there as part of a birth team and this tiny human being who suddenly is no longer living on fluids breathes his first breath of air.

Then the doctors slice the end of his penis off.

What is wrong with people??

Read the Bible, read the articles available through the Circumcision link; check out the writings of 'Sigusmond' and Richard Matteoli; they are two of our team members who expressly follow this topic. I've addressed it quite a few times, Agron takes it on musically, and Dr. Leveque has written about the hard facts of circumcision. Dr. Ronald Goldman is not a member of our team, but he shares articles as a guest writer and his contributions, like Dr. Leveque's, are coming from a high level Medical Expert. Additionally, Dr. Goldman is the author of Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective, which is endorsed by five rabbis.

And on the side of religion, Agron asks the question, "As a Muslim I challenge the Muslim world to bring proof of the validity of this practice, either from the Qur'an or the medical community, just bring some type of proof!"

He stresses that this practice has nothing to do with Islamic history and asks, "When will Muslims understand that circumcision is a bid'ah (innovation), and not a Muslim bid'ah, but a Jewish bid'ah. Since when do Muslims uphold Jewish Bid'ah???"

Some sources for the bid'ah:

Many Jewish Rabbis and scholars believe that this passage about Abraham is an interpolation, an invention of later Judaic priests: “Biblical scholars, however, have known for a long time that this passage was never in the original Bible. It was added about 500 B.C., over one thousand years after the time of Abraham. Scholars David Rosenberg and Harold Bloom have published a full translation of the original version of Genesis, which dates from about 950 B.C. Here, Chapter 17 is conspicuously absent.

All we read is that it was that day Yahweh cut a covenant with Abram: "I gave this land to your seed, from the river of Egypt to the great river, Euphrates—of the Kenite, and Kenizzite, the Kadmonite; of Hittite, the Perizzite, the Rephaim; of the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Girashite, the Jubisite’" (Paul M. Fleiss, Fredirick Mansfield Hodges, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Circumcision; Rosenberg D, Bloom H (trans and eds). The Book of J., New York: Grove Weidenfeld; 1990 p.79)

In addition, Rabbi and historian Lawrence A. Hoffman explains the reason why circumcision was incorporated into priestly Judaism: “they did this by instituting a temple-centered sacrificial cult into which newborn males were initiated by circumcision. They created the Abrahamic circumcision myth and inserted it into the most important part of Genesis, pretending that it had been there all along. The priesthood maintained their grip on power until about A.D. 71, when they were overthrown. Circumcision has remained a Hebrew practice ever since.” (Hoffman L A. Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press; 1996.) See: Music: Say No to Circumcision - Leave Those Babies Alone!

We must change the 'penile code' we live under.

If you think it is interesting that a person like Agron who has a Muslim background has so much to say about this, you have to express an equal amount of surprise to know that our primary advocates supplying the information for this campaign, like Dr. Ronald Goldman, are from the Jewish community in both the U.S. and Israel.

In fact my absolutele favorite image regarding this subject in the world is the middle finger with the words 'Circumcise This!' and that is spray painted on a wall in Israel, friends.

Americans are the last country in the western world to still widely practice this ancient ritual that alters the lives of the victims who are forced to begin their existence in cruel, searing pain that would be torturous to a strong, seasoned adult.

More than 100 baby boys in the U.S.A. die from this practice every year and that alone is reason to call it off. None of the statistics are good, there is not a single truth to the fictitious wives tales; God didn't make us who and what we are "except for that one thing" and those who bring up the appendix needn't because there is no excuse.

If you have already put a child through this, then you, Ms. and Mr. Parent, are part of a grave injustice and have committed a Human Rights violation upon your own flesh and blood; somebody you love... you've also conspired to inflict terrible pain upon. You can never take it back. Talk about a hack job. But hey, my first three sons all went through it, and only my youngest avoided the blade. Face it, we're all born ignorant, but damn we have to spread this message and make it burn in people's minds. End the suffering, or in Agron Belica's words, 'Leave Those Babies Alone!'

Salem-News.com Circumcision articles

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Al Franken and Tim King in Afghanistan

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

He holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu, India.

The notorious list comprising Tim's ancestors includes Pedro de Alvarado, the lieutenant of Hernando Cortez of Spain; King Phillip IV, Eleanor of Aquitaine and William the Conqueror. Perhaps most interestingly, King John; the dark force in the story Robin Hood, and also the last Spanish governor of California, a real person fictionalized as the arch rival of the character in Zorro, are in reality both Tim's multiple-great grandfathers.

Tim at his family ranch in Chino, California.

Others include a Confederate officer in the U.S. Civil War and a decorated 'hero' of the Mexican-American War and the so-called 'Indian Wars'. In fact on the east coast, Tim's lineage with the Slaughter and King families, pre-dates the Mayflower and several members of his family were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. He says his family's past; some of which is very dark; some quite chivalrous, presents a certain responsibility, and that in part drives his desire to see that people in today's world are not exploited or allowed to suffer in silence as victims of Human Rights violations, as people of previous times were.

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)