The New York Times reports this evening that the attempt to force a referendum on criminalizing circumcision in Santa Monica, California is being abandoned by its primary backer:
The woman, Jena Troutman, a mother of two young boys who began the process of trying to get a ban on the Santa Monica municipal ballot in 2012, said the news media had distorted the effort.
“The religious opposition really rose up, and I never intended it to be about that at all,” Ms. Troutman said. “Ninety-five percent of babies who are circumcised have nothing to do with religion — that’s what I was focused on. Once I discovered this bill was not going to open up the conversation but was closing it down, I wanted no part of it.”
Having seen Ms. Troutman’s anti-circumcision website, I believe her when she says her opposition to the procedure has nothing to do with its religious roots. But I think she’s being disingenuous or naive when she claims to be surprised that she got serious push-back. Did she really think Jews and Muslims would just say “Sure, never mind, we’ll do things your way from now on?” (I could go on about white Christian privilege, but I won’t). She also picked the wrong ally in anti-Semitic cartoonist Matthew Hess, and was forced to distance herself from him:
While I do support the human right to bodily integrity and genital autonomy that the MGMbill.org group is working toward, I’m not part of that organization,” Troutman [told the Jewish Journal]. “It’s not a bill that I’m comfortable backing anymore.”
This is the problem with taking on a cause that inherently puts you in opposition to freedom of religion. Even if your activism isn’t motivated by religious bias, if your goals ultimately affect other people’s religious freedom, you’re stuck. Troutman would be better off trying to reduce circumcision through education and advocacy than trying to force her beliefs on their fellow citizens through legislation. San Francisco, however, will still vote on a ban in November.
When I read that this woman said that she was involved in this campaign “to save the babies,” loud alarm bells went off in my head. (It was in the NYT on Sunday.)
Actually, I’d be really interested to hear more about white Christian privilege. In my experience, it’s very much there, but it doesn’t get acknowledged too often.
Basically, Anka, my rant would be that Troutman and many of the anti-circumcision people in her camp are so wrapped up in their own privilege that it never even occured to them that minority communities might not like having voters swoop in and criminalize something that’s an essential part of their religion.
Troutman claims that for her, it’s not about religion, which may be true, but she doesn’t seem to have even considered that it is about religion for a lot of people, and that what she’s doing tramples on their religious freedom. She just thinks that if enough folks like her vote on it, then they must be right, and they can do whatever they want.
It’s a classic blindness that majorities often have with regard to minorities and one that the white Christian majority in the US tends to have towards religious minorities, particularly non-white ones. They simply don’t recognize we exist until we object to something they’re doing that infringes on our rights. (I say “our” and “we” because I am part of one of those religious minorities although I identify as white…though white supremacists would still classify me as non-white).