Cologne's Court Bans Infant Male Genital Mutilation

Article here. Excerpt:

'"To ban infant circumcision is essentially to make the practice of Judaism illegal in Germany; it is now once again a crime to be a Jew in the Reich ... Perhaps those convicted of wrongful circumcision could be required to wear a yellow star?"

... But the court does indeed get to a central issue: can parents permanently mutilate a child's genitals to pursue their own religious goals? I have a rather expanisve view of religious liberty, so I would veer on the side of permissiveness here. But that it is an assault on a child seems obvious to me. If it were done not for religious reasons, it would be banned. And so I do not see making this mutilation as illegal as it is for girls to be somehow bigoted or intolerant.

And the religious liberty involved is obviously not the child's. If he wants to, he can get his genitals mutilated later as a sign of his religious commitment - when he is old enough to be able to make such a choice of his own free will. At some point, one can only hope this barbarism disappears. And it will have nothing to do with anti-Semitism or Islamophobia; it will be about defending the religious liberty of Jewish and Muslim males to choose their religion, and not have it permanently marked as scar tissue on their dicks. ....'