“… and made it look like oral sex.”
It’s totally immature, but is it worth criminalizing him for it?
A Pennsylvania teenager is facing criminal charges after posting pictures to Facebook of him simulating a sex act with a statue of Jesus.
The young man posted that he took the pictures in late July at the statue of a kneeling Jesus in front of the “Love in the Name of Christ” Christian organization in his hometown of Everett.
The criminal charge, which will be heard in family court, consists of “Desecration of a Venerated Object.”
Pennsylvania law defines desecration as “Defacing, damaging, polluting or otherwise, physically mistreating in a way that the actor knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover the action.”
The teen, whose name has not been released, could face up to two years in a juvenile jail if convicted.
Sigh.
JT Eberhard at Patheos looked up the penalties for vandalism in Pennsylvania and this is over the top.
a 14 year-old does something stupid that causes literally zero property damage and he could face two years in juvenile jail because it’s a “venerated object”? That’s insane. That’s really ludicrous.
If he had spray-painted the statue, I’d be all for charging him. If he had done any damage, he should be punished in accordance with the damage done. Hell, I even think a slap on the wrist for trespassing could be appropriate. But fucking with a kid’s life for being immature at an age when pretty much everybody is immature is petty, vindictive bullshit. This law about venerated objects needs to be challenged and unmade, and I hope this case can be a vehicle for that.
Hopes going on here, too. This is clearly brought about by hurt feelings and easily offended locals who just don’t see it as funny. I see it as funny. I think the picture is one of the funnier things I’ve seen lately, and I’ve scrolled through the pictures of Satan with an erection. All of them I could find.
As an update to my previous post about that, apparently there’s a petition up now to ask for the statue to be put up again.
The petition, called ‘Bring the Giant Satan-With-An-Erection Statue Back to East Vancouver‘, has more than 1,000 signatures already. It was created by Darryl Greer and mentions that if the city can install a statue of a porcelain dog on Main Street with a price tag of almost $100,000, it can install a statue of Satan with no cost to taxpayers.
Although the poodle has admitted it is jealous of the statue
Click the link to read the amusing Twitter quip made on the fake dog’s behalf.
Posing with statues is something people do and get their pictures taken doing it. If they can make it somehow sexually suggestive, they will. It’s fun for all ages, too.
Not the original point of the art when put out in the world to see, but people are innovative and funny like that. These days it seems everyone has a camera and it seems everyone has access to quick internet uploading of the pictures they take whether they’re quality shots or absolute crap.
I say sorry that the boy picked your Jesus statue to pose with but it was at just the right height for his pubic public stunt to work. Had it not been there, he couldn’t have done it.
And let us all give thanks to the Flying Spaghetti Monster above for the fact that he kept his clothes on. Other might not have, like this man who stripped and climbed onto the head of the Duke of Cambridge and this woman who recently gave a naked hug to Nelson Mandela.
One Minion's Opinion 