Outsider presidential hopeful Andrew Yang’s latest idea is both literally and figuratively his most unorthodox yet: He’s taking a strong public stance against circumcision.
The Democratic candidate revealed in a little-noticed tweet last week that he was against the ritualized practice of cutting a newborn’s foreskin. But in an interview with The Daily Beast, he said that if he were elected he would incorporate that view into public policy, mainly by pushing initiatives meant to inform parents that they don’t need to have their infants circumcised for health reasons.
“It’s sort of pushed on parents in many situations,” Yang said, describing pressure to circumcise a child as a “cultural onus” imposed on families.
Yang, an entrepreneur whose candidacy is fueled by grassroots donations, appears to be the first presidential candidate in history to take a public position on circumcision. But that’s not a terrible surprise to those who have followed his upstart presidential campaign. There are dozens of position statements on his campaign website, ranging from the obscure to the existential.
