C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” Please take a moment to re-read this and think about it carefully before continuing on. What I am about to ask of you may very well shake you to the core of your being. I want to take a moment before the new year to speak to you about something that affects millions of Americans and happens to countless infants every year. This is child genital mutilation. Americans were and are overwhelmingly against female genital mutilation, but you and many others (including the media) turn a blind eye to the continuing practice of male genital mutilation. At this point your built up walls are all ready telling you to stop and to disengage and fight me, but go back up to the quote above, "a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive" What good comes from circumcision? from this point on lets all be honest with ourselves and reality that this is child genital mutilation. Many of us grew up being convinced of the "good" of circumcision, but the reality is much more sinister, we have been convinced that the mutilation of infants is a "good deed" we are doing so that we can justify to our selves that our tyranny is not evil. A child cannot consent to sex, it cannot consent to having its sex changed, a girl is offered legal protections to not have her genitals mutilated, but we do not offer this same protection to boys? These are infants that this is happening to, the most innocent and vulnerable among us, and yet WE ALL let such a horror be inflicted upon them. How can we live with ourselves knowing that this is happening? " those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." Only together can we end this horror inflicted upon infants, for we have been convinced we do it out of their own good that we so religiously defend the practice of circumcisions (in reality child genital mutilations). Before the new year rings in please take a moment to consider if you would offer infant boys the same protections and love you offer infant girls.