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In 2011, the signatures of over 12,000 San Francisco voters were submitted to the department of elections in support of the San Francisco Male Genital Mutilation Bill, a ballot initiative led by Lloyd Schofield to restrict circumcision to consenting adults.
During a June 2011 interview about the bill, Abby Michelson Porth, Associate Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, defends the ritual genital cutting of boys.
For thousands of years the Jewish community has been practicing circumcision of baby boys.
It's done on the eighth day in a very beautiful, embracing, and loving environment.
It's a beautiful ceremony.
And the Muslim community has been practicing circumcision since its beginning as well.
This is a tradition that is integral and absolutely fundamental to our religious practice.
And it's difficult to understand how Mr. Schofield would say that it's his right or the government's right to decide how I should practice my religion.
Opponents of the SF MGM Bill including the Jewish Community Relations Council and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California won a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco to have the initiative removed from the ballot.
As a result, San Francisco voters were denied their voice and boys continue to be subjected to genital mutilation.