(...continued)

<<Similarly, any noxious practice against our morals and way of life, but especially against our laws should always be deterred. An example could be ritual slaughter, where it must be non-negotiable that prior lawful effective stunning be applied.>>

I am vegetarian, I am not in favour of slaughter, ritual or otherwise, with or without stunning, of animals as well as of humans, but while I don't impose my vegetarianism on anyone else, it seems that you are setting yourself on a collision course, attempting to set YOUR biased morals and way of life above others'.

As you set for an open war, be warned that your beloved state will lose and be destroyed as a result. It may not be immediate, there may be a period of darkness, but in the end nobody can defeat God. In the interim, your Julia will achieve full employment: the construction industry will be doing overtime building new prisons and every job-seeker will be immediately accepted to work as a warden. I suspect that Kim Jong-Un will arrive as a guest-of-honour to study the Australian advanced methods of incarcerating those of dissenting values.

<<Regarding circumcision, it would be intolerable if it was supported by the State through Medicare or through private funds unless medically necessary. First do no harm. But the cutters are forever lobbying for taxpayers to fund their nasty business.>>

Here I agree without reservations!

Those who circumcise their children at the service to God (again, whether God actually asked for it or not is irrelevant, what matters is that they truly and honestly believe that He did), will not mind the extra sacrifice of some dollars, while those who do so merely for cultural reasons may be deterred by the financial burden.

Yuyutsu: "If one's intention in circumcising their son (or daughter for that matter) is PURELY and UNSELFISHLY to serve God, then their actions (even when misguided) are blessed, overriding any negative material effects."

Prove God exists, and you have a case. Till then it befits us to behave like rational and compassionate human beings.

Yuyutsu,

This is a secular State. Its laws apply to religions too. Tolerance of religion does not extend to breaking laws. No 'ifs' or 'buts'.

The laws were arrived at through democratic processes and yes, the laws do express the community's subjective judgement of morals and values. That is the intent of laws.

There is nothing more crystal clear than the Australian people's demand that children be protected to the full extent of the available law and that all children are free to live a normal childhood and to receive the full benefits, including education, of living in this society.

If you want other laws you will have to convince people through the lawful and democratic processes that are available. If you don't like that, tough.

All rather instructive....Parser links to evidence showing the health benefits of circumcision and everyone avoids mentioning or noticing it like the plague. It seems that those opposed to the cut are determined to not see anything that might deflect from their just knowing that its all about religion.

Many of the things that become religious ritual are done for health purposes. The Semitic religious sanction against pork or any pig meat makes sense in a climate where such meat can go off in a spectacularly short time. Ditto the Jewish compunction to bury the dead within one day of death.

When the uncircumcised Roman armies first ventured into those climes where circumcision was practised many men suffered terribly from the hot dry dusty conditions. Now we know that, among less well developed cultures, circumcision has definite health benefits.

So circumcision isn't part of the culture because of religion, it is part of religion because of the culture.

Now it is true that these health benefits have diminished as we have become healthier, especially those of us who don't live in hot dry climates and for those reasons my own off-spring aren't cut.

But just mindlessly blaming it all on religion is...well mindless.

What records were kept of deaths and other healthy complications from improving on nature because the male body was never designed to cope with dust?

Honestly, how did women keep clean in the dust? Or was it as you imply, that only the male body evolved defective, with the fatal flaw of a foreskin?

But to play along with you just a wee (awful pun, sorry) bit more, how did 'culture' dictate ritual slaughter?

Religious superstition to control people, that is the reason, nothing deeper than dirty old buggers interfering with boys' penises and inventing an excuse to do so.

There is no justification whatsoever for requiring the Australian taxpayer to fund unnecessary procedures, religious rituals, violence with actual bodily harm, against infants who cannot give informed consent.

"Behind the religious sanitation, the motives for circumcision are pre-historic, primitive, barbaric, and cruel. Circumcision sprang from sacrificial impulses, from the desire to control individuals and to mark them with tribal identifiers, to initiate the youths into the tribe, and, through the infliction of an excruciatingly painful procedure, gain proof of the youths' fortitude and courage.12

It is likely also that mutilating the genitals of others has a deep sexual motive. This motive combined with the urge to control people when, in the nineteenth century, doctors first introduced 'medicalised' circumcision in the vain attempt to prevent masturbation."

http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/price2/

onthebeach,

I think you should take a look at the following for some more accurate information about circumcision and its history, because most of what you are stating as fact is highly inaccurate, and at best is pure, though misguided, supposition.

http://www.circinfo.net/history_and_recent_trends.html