New York has just seen a huge victory for religious freedom — and Bill de Blasio deserves a share of the credit.
At issue was a Jewish circumcision rite called metzitzah b’peh. The ritual goes back millennia, and involves the direct oral suction of the circumcision wound.
Beginning with then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg, health officials argued the practice leads to the transmission of herpes to babies.
So the Board of Health imposed a regulation to force the mohels to distribute parental-consent forms that basically attacked their own ritual.
But then the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals intervened. The court made clear the bar for the city was high here, because instead of a generally applicable law, authorities were targeting a specific religious practice.
Cut to today. The city has just reached a compromise. When a case of herpes is confirmed, the mohel will be tested.
If he has the virus and its DNA matches the virus in the infant, the mohel will be barred for life from performing the ritual.
“This is an example of better late than never,” says Eric Rassbach of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “The city should never have adopted this rule in the first place, and it shouldn’t have taken a loss in the federal courts to bring them to the bargaining table. But this solution respects both religious liberty and public health.”
From ancient times, Jewish communities have proved themselves willing to risk everything to carry out what they believe God’s law commands them to do.
The free-exercise clause is designed to protect people like this. Good for Mayor de Blasio for recognizing it applies in New York, too.