Is Tolerance Our Best?

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Another guest post by Dana


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Yesterday was National Coming Out Day - a day managed by the Human Rights Campaign to not only encourage the LGBT community to speak up (and out) for who they are, but to get ALL people to talk about their support for equality at home, at work and in their communities.

Throughout the news and the cyber world, I kept seeing and hearing reference to tolerance. We need to have tolerance for the LGBT community. We need to have tolerance for those who lead a different lifestyle than we do. We need to have tolerance, not hate.

I disagree.

Merriam-Webster defines tolerance as:

sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own.

Sympathy? Indulgence? Wow! Really?

As a society, we've kind of come to an acceptance of tolerance. We've set it as the goal we should all strive to meet. I think we can do better than tolerance.

I don't want to be tolerated in spite of my differences, I want to be celebrated for ALL that I bring to the table.

I don't want people to have sympathy for my sexual orientation, or to allow me to indulge in my sexual preferences. That reeks of needing their permission.

I don't want their permission - I don't want their tolerance - I want their acceptance.

At some point, society lost the true definition of acceptance and began defaulting to tolerance. There seems to be this underlying fear that if we accept people in spite of their sexual orientation (or race, or religion, or gender, or any other difference) that we somehow lessen the pride we have regarding of our own sexual orientation (or race, or religion, or gender, or any other difference).

It's crazy.

I suppose tolerance is a start, but I think we should set the bar higher - much higher.

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A special thanks to Emmy at Right Turn Without Signaling for her Tolerance post yesterday that served as an inspiration for this post.

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