Just in time for the Christmas season, vandalizing cemeteries or religious displays outside of a place of worship is now a felony in New York.
“It always seems like around the holiday time, either the baby Jesus gets stolen or menorahs get damaged,” said Kathleen Joy, D-Syracuse, the majority leader of Syracuse’s Common Council.
Joy is among elected officials greeting the new law, enacted in early December, with pleasure. But local religious leaders have mixed feeling about the new law.
Pastor Daren Jaime of the People’s A.M.E. Zion Church in Syracuse says it will be beneficial. “It prevents damage that sometimes occur by insensitivity and people’s lack of knowledge,” said Jaime, “and I hope that it gives an opportunity for people to understand the importance of respecting a faith.”
But Pastor Leslie Johnson of the Tucker Missionary Baptist Church in Syracuse says the law is useless because he has not witnessed vandalism of religious displays in Central New York.
“I think it’s not beneficial at all, particularly in Central New York because the only time we’ve had anything that I can recall, was somebody marred a Jewish temple in DeWitt,” Johnson said.
Before the law came into effect, vandalizing religious displays or cemeteries was a misdemeanor. But damaging or stealing from the interior of a house of worship was a felony and the new law extends that protection to the exterior of a place of worship.
Places of worship also suffer financial damage from vandals, said Common Council member Joy. “In these times, money’s tight for everybody, including religious organizations and its costly to repair and replace those kinds of items especially because they’re seasonal,” said Joy.
Under the new law, anyone convicted of more than $100 in damage to church property faces up to a year in prison.
(Mojgan Sherkat is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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