Circumcision As A Protected Religious Practice

Today's New York Times Magazine carries an article by Jeffrey Rosen titled, Is Ritual Circumcision Religious Expression? This follows a widely-published Associated Press story earlier in the week reporting that the New York state Health Department is drawing up its first set of safety guidelines governing "metzitzah b’peh", a circumcision practice still used by some ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities that has been found to risk spreading herpes infections to newborns. (See prior related postings 1, 2, 3, 4 .)