Teen's Facebook photos with Jesus statue lead to desecration charge
A 14-year-old Pennsylvania teen has been charged with desecration of a venerated object after apparently posting Facebook photos showing him engaged in a simulated sex act with a statue of Jesus.
The Everett teen was charged under a rarely used 1972 law, report the Smoking Gun, the Raw Story, the Daily Mail Online and the Associated Press, which cites a story by the Altoona Mirror (sub. req.).
The statue is owned by a Christian service organization called Love in the Name of Christ. A spokesperson for the group told the Raw Story that it did not seek the charges. “We have asked for prayer for this young man,” the spokesperson said. “So, what is happening is from the police. It is not from the ministry.”
A state police spokesperson told the Daily Mail Online that the district attorney’s office discovered the photo and decided to file charges after a state police investigation.
Writing at his Res Ipsa Loquitur blog, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley says the desecration law appears ripe for a constitutional challenge.
“It seems unlikely that the teen would have been charged in the same way with a frog or dog statue,” Turley writes. “None of these excuses his actions, of course. His conduct was obnoxious and disgraceful. Unfortunately, those terms could be in the dictionary under ‘teenager.’ ”
