An effort to ban circumcision in San Francisco is already off the November ballot, but Gov. Jerry Brown has now signed a bill aimed at ensuring it doesn’t come before local voters again.
Brown’s office announced Sunday that in response to a band of San Francisco residents having gathered the signatures necessary to get the measure on the ballot earlier this year, state law that prohibits local jurisdictions from regulating healing arts professionals has now been expanded to include circumcision specifically.
The ban effort gave rise to opposition from the Jewish Community Relations Council, which successfully sued The City to remove the ban from the ballot and protect the religiously significant practice for the Jewish and Muslim faiths. If voters had approved the measure, circumcision of minor males in San Francisco would have become a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail.
A similar measure on the federal level, H.R. 2400, is being sponsored by U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks.
