By Dan Savage
Logic is on the side of the anticircumcision activists. Not even the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the procedure routinely anymore. And the pro-circumcision arguments don’t hold much water. Family resemblance? Not something we usually judge on the appearance of genitals. Teasing in the locker room? Half of all boys born in America today are not circumcised; if your son gets teased, he and the other uncut kids can form a gang and beat the shit out of the snip-dicks. Hard to keep clean? We don’t cut off other body parts that need a little extra attention. Do we yank out our teeth to avoid the bother of flossing? But what does logic have to do with kids? Is there anyone less rational than a new parent?
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At the hospital, when Terry had asked Melissa how she felt about it, Melissa had shrugged. Terry analyzed the shrug and claimed it was two against one in favor of cutting D.J. I gave in. Terry could go ahead and have D.J. circumcised, but I wasn’t going to lift a finger to help. Terry made an appointment with a urologist, and then, having lifted a finger–he pushed the buttons on the phone all by himself!–he decided it was my job to find us a ride to the hospital. I told him no, I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to help. If he wanted D.J.’s foreskin cut off, he would have to get it done without me.
“No. It’s none of his business,” said Terry, knowing full well that if he had told him, Dave wouldn’t be driving him to the doctor.
My grandfather was baptized wearing a white linen gown. My mother was baptized wearing the same gown. My brothers and sisters and I were all baptized wearing my grandfather’s gown, as were all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Hundreds of members of my family have been baptized wearing that gown, and I wanted D.J. baptized in it too. Not that I wanted to raise D.J. Catholic. I waver between a cop-out agnosticism and principled atheism, and nothing about becoming a parent made me want to return to the Church or any church. But still, when anyone asks about my heritage, I describe myself as Irish Catholic. It’s a cultural thing.
“I’ll get on a plane and go to Chicago,” Terry said. “But I’m not going to lift a finger to help with the baptism.”
On the plane, more problems presented themselves. The passengers in our row, the flight attendants, even the captain walked up and asked D.J. questions:
