Remember that 14-year-old kid in Pennsylvania who took a salacious picture of himself on a church lawn with a statue of a recumbent Jesus, and was then arrested for “desecreating a venerated object” after posting it on Facebook? (See my post, with the photo, here). Well, he didn’t go to jail, but, according to WJAC television (no jokes!) in Johnstown Pennsylvania, the sentence was still pretty stiff for a teenage prank, and the kid got a religious lecture from the judge (the church was named “Love in the Name of Christ”):
The boy appeared before Judge Thomas Ling and agreed to a consent decree signed by all parties involved, including the boy, his mother and his attorney, Karen Hickey. The boy must not use social media during a six-month probation period as well as perform 350 hours of community service. Among the other punishments, he must obey a curfew of 10 p.m., no alcohol or other controlled substances monitored by random drug testing and stay in school. District Attorney Bill Higgins presented the decree to the court. After accepting the agreement and while settling the number of community service hours, Judge Ling focused on the religious rights of Love in the Name of Christ, noting that the juvenile’s actions infringed upon their rights to practice their faith.
I know that there are many groups that say this case is about religious rights, and quite frankly, they are right,” said Higgins in a written statement. “But it is the religious rights of the Christian organization that owns the statue and has placed it for display on their private property that have been implicated. They have every right to practice their faith unmolested. In American, we all enjoy the right to freedom of expression and the freedom to practice our religious beliefs without interference, but that right ends where those same rights of another begin.”
At any rate, laws like Pennsylvania’s seem unconstitutional, and should be ditched. Get the kid for trespassing if you must, but really, “desecrating a venerated object”? The US Supreme court has ruled it legal to burn an American flag, so what’s so special about Jesus? Both fit the mold of “venerated objects,” and desecrating them is freedom of speech unless they’re private property (but was the Jesus statue damaged? No!). Is it illegal to burn a Bible in Pennsylvania? If someone wanted to burn a copy of On the Origin of Species, it wouldn’t bother me one bit.
But we can be heartened that every one of the ten comments on the station’s site was on the side of the angels (i.e., the better angels of our nature). To wit:
h/t: Diana MacPherson
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350 hours over six months is about fifteen hours a week — quite an awful lot of time for a student in high school. The judge’s thirst for revenge may well being non-trivial harm to the kid’s academic career, which one would nominally think would be paramount to a judge in such a situation.
…and that, of course, is ignoring the flagrant disrespect the judge is displaying for the Constitution….
b&
I’m surprised a judge is even allowed to speak in such a way as it is so clear the unnecessary lecture favours Christianity and is given to a captive audience. I hope someone takes up this cause pro bono and appeals to a higher court.
This type of consent decree is basically the end of the line. All parties explicitly agree that they give their consent to the ruling. It generally includes some sort of admission of guilt and an acceptance that the punishment is acceptable. Challenging it at this point is not impossible but would be not only highly unusual but remarkably difficult. The legal hurdles are basically insurmountable.
If there was to be an appeal, they would have had to have gone to trial…which is fraught with its own risks.
Why, yes. Our justice system is totally fucked up. Why do you ask?
b&
Yeah, one would think that burning for eternity would have been punishment enough.
I can’t figure out how doing what this kid did somehow prevented Christians from practising their religion.
I have a hard time (damn, phrasing!) seeing how the action (damn!) infringed on the rights of the church either. The church wasn’t identified in the photos was it? The statue wasn’t harmed, was it?
I have a shirt which says, “God was my copilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.” I guess I’d better not wear it in PA.
Maybe there is some alternative logic at work, relating to the judge’s hidden desires.
If an image of a tree with JC’s likeness falls in forest and the kid disses it, does anyone care?
“Infringed on their rights?” Ridiculous.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the words “Jesus-fellated teen” before. Funny.
Oh, and this was funny – who could make this sh*t up, I ask you??
What about that family praying and crossing themselves before dinner at our local spaghetti house?
> noting that the juvenile’s actions infringed upon their rights to practice their faith.
That’s right buster!
Now I can’t pray. Not at that Jesus whore. Now I have to search for another Christ. My life is ruined so who cares about the academic career of a disturbed teenager?
Lucky for you, Christs are a dime a dozen. Quite literally and with no exaggeration, every ancient Jewish king was a Christ — and there were even ancient Egyptian Christians who identified as such with no knowledge of the Jewish archangel named, “Jesus”!
…this, of course, is because, “Christ,” simply means, “anointed,” and is the same religious ceremony that remains to this day in the Catholic Church as “Chrism” in the Sacrament of Confirmation, whereby oil is rubbed / poured on the head. It was the way by which the holy were formally identified. As such, pretty much every Catholic you meet, as well as significant numbers of other Christians, are themselves Christs….
b&
And if that kid is reading this:
Jesus is a whore. He is omniscient, meaning he knew that was going to happen. He is omniprezent, meaning he was there waiting for you like a slut. He is even omnipotent, meaning he lead your steps to him, in order for him to taste the forbidden pleasure. Which lends new meanings to the prayer *don’t lead me into temptation*.
And that Jesus is a whore with a disgusting charater. He needed to give you, through that silly judge, that punishment. Mary, his mother, still remembers the good old days when christianity was distroying any sense of community so there was no community service, only lashes and burning at the stake. Oh, those were the days! Hail Mary.
And the people are just showing how they follow Jesus with love, although he is a proven homosexual having an affair in public in broad daylight, they still love him. No matter what.
I approve this message!
b&
His family must hold similar views as the judge. I wouldn’t have settled (not in this day of social media, anyway).
My thoughts as well. Seems very likely that his parents had a lot to do with “all parties agreeing.”
I’m sure they think they are doing the right thing. And that right there is a perfect illustration of religion poisoning something.
I disagree. The DA just had too much leverage here. The kid was looking at a possible jail sentence of up to two years. If it had been my son, I’d have pushed for a plea deal, too, even if it meant apologizing to the nice Jesus statue, scrubbing the church’s bathroom grout with a toothbrush every Saturday morning for a year, etc.–whatever it took to keep him in high school and out of juvie.
Might a First Amendment challenge to the law have prevailed, perhaps on appeal? Sure, but quite likely after the kid served his sentence and had his adolescence derailed.
Civil court challenges pose risks mostly to pride, reputation, and checkbooks. The stakes are much higher in criminal court.
This is just wrong. There should be no laws for blaspheming mythical characters, or even Disney characters for that matter. We are sliding into a cesspool of socialism and theocratic bullying.
Socialism???
I can’t believe this kid was even charged in the first place in a modern Western democracy. I think as far as this judge is concerned, you’re free to speak if your opinions are the same as his.
I wouldn’t mind betting that the two males/sexual element played a part in the judge coming down hard on this kid. (Sorry – couldn’t resist!)
Good point. I wonder if a girl would have gotten into as much triuble?
The judge and district attorney are thankful for the first amendment which guarantees their right to express any opinion, regardless of how stupid it makes them appear.
Don’t all these idiots get elected at that level in the US? Keep the voters happy is probably the criminalogical theory in play!
Just congenially curious, does “idiocy” to any degree apply to the adolescent in question? If not, what alternate noun or adjective would reasonably accurately describe him? Or, in accordance with the apparent current state of brain research, is it simply that his pre-frontal lobes are insufficiently developed? After all, Hitch repeatedly reflected on how we are half a chromosome away from chimpanzees, our adrenal glands are too big, and our pre-frontal lobes too small. That last would be a handy excuse for bad judgement at any age.
They sure taught that satanic youth a lesson!
I have a friend who (as a teenager) smashed his car through a telephone pole (creating a blackout for hundreds of houses) and then crashed through a baseball field’s cyclone fence behind the batter’s box (that 40′ tall fence). He was drunk and fled the scene. When sober, he turned himself in. His punishment: he received a reckless driving ticket and got 40 hours of community service.
Obviously the falatio-Jesus kid’s crime was far more heinous.
He violated the commandment against molesting a graven image.
“manufactured outrage” how can one possibly improve on that description? Thanks, I’ll definitely use it. ‘Manufactured outrage’, Oh yes, I see it “your manufactured outrage is impropriate here” for Christians and Muslims alike. I love it, it is so true in most cases!
What if I took a picture of that kitschy Jesus statue from public property and then photoshopped some obscenity onto it, even perhaps a stock photo “teen”, and then posted it online?
Perhaps I’d be infringing on their rights to their disgustingly awful statue and the full weight of Judge Lingus would fall on me. And a pompous, borderline illiterate DA would let loose.
Shudder! And then the santimonious speeches!! The shame of it all!
Since the kid thinks it such a great thing to do, perhaps his “punishment” should be – or he should be paid, perhaps $100 per day:
1. To wear, during regular business/school hours, a laminated picture of him and the statue attached to a lanyard, or
2. To go to the statue every day for 30 days and duplicate the activity for one minute.
He could petition for an extension of the sentence/money-making opportunity.
Or, perhaps he could no less willingly and enthusiastically (the “god within”) demonstrate his humping technique at a school assembly, and instigate a general statue-humping rave. These would be videoed and posted for a time on Youtube, until they became boring.
The kid should have said it was just a doctored photo. The sentence is too stiff.
350 hours of community service? For what? This harmless piffle? What country are we living in now, Saudi Arabia?
His punishment is retributivist, from the Christian heart, which is not formed from a limitless love, but one of insecurity.
Where the hell is the ACLU?
The ACLU can’t represent anyone without the necessary consent (of at least the kid, and probably his parents, depending on the nuances of Pennsylvania law). If the ACLU isn’t counsel, it’s got no ability to do much except opine to the press: http://www.wjactv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/teen-charge-desecrating-bedford-co-statue-3674.shtml.
But even if the ACLU (or FFRF or AU) had been part of the defense team, I’m not sure the results would have been all that different. A defendant’s attorneys have one job–to minimize the defendant’s misery within the bounds of the law. Accepting this consent decree, which necessarily meant not contesting the desecration statute, took the threat of two years in jail off the table. A First Amendment throw-down might ultimately have succeeded (signs point to yes), but quite possibly only after the kid had done time behind bars. It’s difficult for me to imagine a competent lawyer advising a high school freshman to reject a consent decree and risk two years in juvie for a shot at overturning his conviction under a flawed, rarely-used desecration law months or years down the road.
It’s a relief that you know your rules of grammar. It would have been quite embarrassing if you’d inadvertenly written that title as “Jesus fellated teen, receives probation, community service, and ban from social media for six months”
That was way too much of everything. It sohuld’ve been no conviction on blasphemy, zero impact on his social media use, and maybe 8 hours community service related to fixing the sort of damage trespassers do. I would’ve frankly been fine with 0 hours or some small amount given solely as probation.
The church certainly has a right to not have their property climbed upon, but there should’ve been no penalty or criminal case connected to the content of the kid’s speech.
I would add that I hope the teen goes out and buys his own statue, takes loads of pictures with it, and emails the pictures to all his friends so that they can put the pics up on social media. Perhaps he can grab a black robe and put it over the statue as he’s taking pictures with it.
🙂
I’m rooting for a grown-up activist, who is prepared for the legal risks, to go to Johnstown and reenact the kid’s stunt in protest. Of course, that would take a few more vacation days and a lot more guts than I have . . . .
I find the placement of the statue, in plain sight of any passer-by (including, perhaps me), to be an insult to my intelligence and an infringement of my right to practice my non-religion undisturbed. By the court’s reasoning, whoever placed the statue in plain sight should be prosecuted.