COMMENTARY :: Tolerance Or Acceptance?

TOLERANCE OR ACCEPTANCE ? How high is the bar we LGBT people set when it comes to our expectation of those who are not us? Not that high, from what I continue to observe, cringing.

That T word has been a problem for me for years now  – okay both T words but I’m talking tolerance today – and I continue to be amazed by the scope and breadth with which the use of it remains the norm.

Well-meaning straight people whip it around like a limp rainbow flag, too, but it hurts my ears more when One Of My Own says they want tolerance.

Tolerance. We call for tolerance, we demand tolerance, our allies want tolerance for us.

Last weekend I grabbed a copy of The Economist; their cover story The Gay Divide spoke of how half the world has lept forward on gay issues, while many countries are going backwards where LGBT equality is concerned.

I didn’t get too far into the magazine. I read the words ‘tolerate’ and ‘tolerance’ about a dozen times, gagging on my martini, finally tossing the issue aside, picking up instead a magazine that promised to share the myriad ways Kim Kardashian spoils North West.

That was far easier to … tolerate. Because here’s my thing and even if I’m the only gay in the village saying this, I’m  fine: I do not in any way whatsoever have any need or desire or longing to be tolerated – not by anyone.

What a insipid word choice, when the word acceptance is so primed, ready and waiting and far more apropos to describe the spirit of love and equality we all claim to want in this world.

And could you imagine the uproar if I said I tolerated Jews? Women? Black people? Asians?

Only I’ll never say that, because I don’t tolerate, I accept. I accept that as people we are all equal.

So why do we still – and by we I mean LGBT people and our straight allies – continue to hold the bar at knee height, expecting only tolerance for ourselves from those who would oppose us, misunderstand us, or be tiptoeing towards knowing us.

I’ve been beating this drum for years; Cyndi Lauper gave me the best answer I’ve heard so far when I interviewed her a few years ago:

“I don’t know whether it’s tolerance or acceptance, that’s a very good question. Not everybody is going to accept everybody. But what you do have to do is accept that you don’t have to change them.”

I think for people who are nowhere near acceptance, tolerance is the first stop on the way to more. But like I said, I’ve been beating this drum for years – when do we raise the bar in our daily conversation, in magazines written by the types of minds that write for The Economist? When do we ask for what we deserve instead of what we think someone might get away with giving us?

You tolerate the baby screaming on the plane. You tolerate mediocre service in a restaurant. You tolerate that the guy driving the machine that sucks up street garbage seems to always pass by your place at 6 am Sunday mornings. You tolerate that Kim and Kanye are on the cover of every magazine and that you are reading the words of a sane man who buys them.

You don’t tolerate people. People you accept. Disagree with, don’t understand, dislike perhaps. But you don’t “put up with them” like they are a fly buzzing around your head on an anotherwise idyllic Sunday afternoon at the cottage.

Or maybe it’s just me and my silly high standards for myself as a human being. Regardless, I expect acceptance, period.

Anything less, for me, I just won’t tolerate.

– As part of his #ThoughtRevolution, GGN publisher Shaun Proulx chooses his words very carefully. Read more about that here, and listen to episodes of his SiriusXM show here. Images: Shaun Proulx Media