- Regarding the ~~ Judge OK’s Female Mutilation ~~ intimations we have seen
- Some of the stories regarding this were not just click-bait, they paid no attention to the gist of the ruling
The superficial impression I had initially was that a judge ruled that female mutilation could not be prosecuted on some religious freedom basis – that was not the case.
It was based on the unassailable long-standing core of our federalism that assaults indeed most criminality — murder, theft, etc are state crimes. This was a federal court decision as the mutilators were charged with a federal crime which was “we must do something” overreach on a matter (assault crimes) the federal government generally does not get into under our constitution. If this federal purview grab were not improper every criminal matter could be made a federal issue. That would not be good for our freedoms.
The federal government relied on an interpretation of some treaty to justify making it a federal matter and criminalizing it. That pretext is a VERY dangerous precedent/concept. The judge indicated no treaty can violate, or be superior to, or the basis of obviating our federalism, our governmental structure, our Constitutional separation of powers.
I would add that if that were not the case we would have one world government by treaty.
Perhaps individual states should specifically ban it but my guess is that existing statutes in every state could be used to prosecute what is female mutilation as child abuse. Michigan failed to. Oh you can bet the religious freedom argument will come back, even using circumcision as an example — a bogus comparison. R Mall
Judge right– states job not feds outlaw female genital mutilation
