Summary
Steve Lee Hayes, a 65-year-old American tourist, was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly carving family members’ names into a wooden Torii gate at the Meiji Shrine.
Surveillance footage led police to his hotel, where he was detained.
Hayes admitted to the act, which could result in up to three years in prison or a fine of 300,000 yen ($1,900).
The Meiji Shrine, a significant Shinto site, was built in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. The incident occurs amid a surge in international tourism to Japan this year.
Do we really need people to look down on that much that it warrants these comments? Don’t get me wrong, he is a jerk and behaves like a teenager while 65, but people here act like he jumped a barrier to shit in a millenia old sarcophagus instead of pressing his thumb into 100 year old wood. I think I may have done worse at my old school.
This site’s against a police state, but wants the government to crack down on this nuisance with all its might. We’re against Religion, but Japan’s emperor cult is sacred. Throw molotovs into governmental buildings, but don’t you dare touch this wooden arch.
Just let him pay the fine, have the sites insurance cover restoration, big whoop.
To be fair, I personally put Shintoism in a very different box than that of typical Western religions. Shits just about respect and balance, not begging for forgiveness from some god and hating gay people.
Fuck this grown ass man.
I would never generalize a religion that much, especially when I don’t know anyone who does practice it or has to live under it. When all you have is how it is represented, you tend to idolize it and miss the practical aspects of the faith, like how hating gays and abortions isn’t explicitly in the bible yet those are more important aspects to Christianity in practice than Sola Fide.
I learned my lesson after reading about Buddhism in Myanmar, if you say it’s just about respect and balance, I don’t believe you.
Realistically you’re right, but also tourists disrespecting the cultural sites they’re visiting is especially grating, particularly when it’s a white guy and in a nonwhite country, and Americans specifically have a reputation for this sort of thing which some of us are embarrassed by and want to distance ourselves from.
Like, if this was a Japanese person who was doing it to spite the imperial family, I’d be totally fine with it, but this guy just seems disrespectful of the culture in general, like, if there was some kind of cultural site dedicated to spiting the emperor, he’d likely deface that just as readily. Practically speaking, whatever punishment is applied to shitty tourists will also be applied to political protestors, so legally it’s better if it’s a slap on the wrist, but we can still say the guy sucks.
It’s because he’s American and Lemmy loves to shit all over Americans.
M pretty sure the dude would still be a piece of shit regardless of what country he was shat from.
Yeah he would be, that’s not the point of my comment nor the point of the comment I replied to. Would he get the same comments this thread is giving this guy? Nah. Lemmy loves to hate on Americans. If he was German or Swedish, the amount of vitriol would be very much lessened.