Please represent your state for MGMBill.org

[TLCTugger]

From Matthew Hess of MGMBill.org:
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At this point we have temporary 2011 state offices confirmed for 6 states: California, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and Virginia. There is still time to sign up as a 2011 temporary state office if you haven't done so already, though! For more details, please visit http://www.mgmbill.org/2011.htm.
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By serving as your state's MGM Bill office you are responsible for submitting the bill to every state legislator and to the President. In reality it's not hard at all as these things can be auto-faxed and/or mass-emailed. Please visit http://www.mgmbill.org/2011.htm and volunteer now so there is time to prepare a draft bill for your state before the submission date.

[admin]

I hope you all made sure your state was represented.
-Ron

Originally Posted by TLCTugger

From Matthew Hess of MGMBill.org:
- - - - -
At this point we have temporary 2011 state offices confirmed for 6 states: California, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and Virginia. There is still time to sign up as a 2011 temporary state office if you haven't done so already, though! For more details, please visit http://www.mgmbill.org/2011.htm.
- - - - -

By serving as your state's MGM Bill office you are responsible for submitting the bill to every state legislator and to the President. In reality it's not hard at all as these things can be auto-faxed and/or mass-emailed. Please visit http://www.mgmbill.org/2011.htm and volunteer now so there is time to prepare a draft bill for your state before the submission date.

[admin]

I just finished the 2011 MGM Bill submission on behalf of my fellow Illinoisans.

It took me a total of under 90 minutes. The bulk of the work was accomplished by an online service that did a broadcast mail-merge fax to the Illinois legislature. 9 faxes failed so I had to print and mail the bill to those guys/gals. Then I faxed my governor, my 2 US senators, my federal representative, and President Obama.

It's really very easy and Matthew Hess, the director of MGMBill.org, gave me a lot of help and guidance. It looks like this time around at least half the states went unrepresented. I hope everyone will consider serving as their state's MGM Bill office next time.

-Ron Low
http://TLCTugger.com
847 414-1692

[Tally]

Originally Posted by admin

It looks like this time around about half the states went unrepresented. I hope everyone will consider serving as their state's MGM Bill office next time.

It is not too late. The MGM bills can be submitted at any time to the state legislature and to the federal congressmen. Everyone in the US should send something to their elected officials.

http://www.mgmbill.org/2011.htm

[RestoreMeASAP]

I think MGM Bill is the wrong approach. Legislation to ban circumcision will fail without religious exemption. Even countries prohibiting circumcision (like Finland & Sweden) make an allowance for religious reasons. Even the Roman Emperor Hadrian outlawed circumcision as a mutilation normally visited on people unable to consent, but he later exempted the Jews.

Everytime intactivists attempt to outlaw all circumcision, such as MGM or the San Fransisco ballot proposal, the debate shifts from infant & individual rights to religious freedom and parents rights. Yea, I know that is wrong, in a perfect world individual rights trump all, but we don't live in a perfect world.

Such a law will never receive support, either from legislators or the public. Any legislator thinking of endorsing the Bill might as well hit the eject button on his political career. Public education on the issue must come first. Laws follow when an idea is raised in the public conscious first.

MGMbill should get realistic, make some compromises, and work towards a goal of reducing the rate of circumcision rather than trying to outlaw it in one fell swoop.

[admin]

Originally Posted by RestoreMeASAP

I think MGM Bill is the wrong approach. Legislation to ban circumcision will fail without religious exemption.

Any law that makes it legal to hurt someone just because of his family's religion would never pass the constitutional requirement for equal protection.

Originally Posted by RestoreMeASAP

Even countries prohibiting circumcision (like Finland & Sweden) make an allowance for religious reasons.

Actually what Sweden's law says is that only a doctor may do it. A strictly religious person CAN'T circumcise on that credential alone like they could in the US.

Originally Posted by RestoreMeASAP

Such a law will never receive support, either from legislators or the public.

I'm sure there were people asking for freedom for slaves or for women's voting rights hundreds of years before those things came to pass.

Originally Posted by RestoreMeASAP

Laws follow when an idea is raised in the public consciousness first.

I think MGMBill does just that.

Originally Posted by RestoreMeASAP

MGMbill should get realistic, make some compromises, and work towards a goal of reducing the rate of circumcision rather than trying to outlaw it in one fell swoop.

Here's how they could do all that. Propose a law that simply makes it illegal to amputate any healthy normal body part from a non-consenting person without a diagnosis of defect or disease and without a record of which less-invasive remedies were tried first. Very reasonabale and foreskin is not even mentioned in the bill.

Another law that would help a lot without mentioning foreskin would make it illegal for a doctor, hospital, or mortician to have a financial or other beneficial arrangement in place for "disposal" of "medical waste" from procedures without 100% disclosure to the patient and/or guardian. This would make it illegal to sell most infant foreskin to pharma labs (see latest Press Room entries for examples of how these are used clinically) and also protect families from the sort of abuses that were unearthed by 60 Minutes (body parts were being removed from cadavers by morticians and being sold to medical experimentors and surgical trainers).

Who's got time to run these other law proposals through to all legislators?