A lot of points brought up, not sure how factual, but would be nice for someone to link some articles. This isn't a topic that you start searching about on Wikipedia. Good information is probably tough to come by on the topic.
One poster said the practice was symbolic but then got shot down by another poster saying it wasn't symbolic. Well which is it? If Judaism practices circumcision and there's "no real life or medical benefit" then it's going to appear to be purely symbolic.
It is Sodom all over again. The biblical story about the dead sea is that before there was a sea it was a city. And the people that lived there were the sodomites. These people lived debaucherous lives, were degenerates and homosexuals. To rid the evil and filth of this area it was flooded.