Caption in Danish paper The Local: A Muslim boy is circumcised in Bulgaria.
Our thanks to Patrick Smyth for retweeting this. Extracts from the piece:
Denmark’s ruling Liberal Party has come out against a ban on the circumcision of young boys, meaning the controversial citizen’s proposal is unlikely to make it through parliament.
“It has been difficult today, and if we had taken the easy route, we would have said ‘yes’ to a ban,” the party’s group chairman, Søren Gade, told the Berlingske newspaper after a long-drawn out meeting of party MPs to discuss the issue on Tuesday. [J4MB: What a liar. The easy route was to say “no” to a ban, so that’s what these spineless politicians did.]
Opinion polls in the past have found that close to three quarters of Danes support a ban on the circumcision of boys and the Danish Medical Association has also called for it to be illegal under the age of 18.
The opposition Social Democrats and the populist Danish People’s Party have both come out in opposition to the ban. The Liberal Alliance and the Conservative party plan to give their MPs a free vote. The Socialist People’s Party (SF) is the only party which is requiring its MPs to vote in favour.
“We think it’s very simple,” SF health spokesperson Kirsten Normann Andersen said earlier this month.
“We had no problems deciding to forbid female circumcision, we had no problem scrapping the right for parents to smack children, and now it’s time to get to grips with this issue.” [J4MB emphasis. Amen to that sentiment.]
