Probably no concept has more currency in our politically correct culture today than the notion of tolerance. Unfortunately, one of America’s noblest virtues has been so distorted it’s become a vice.
According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, 2nd College Edition, the word tolerate means to allow or to permit, to recognize and respect others’ beliefs and practices without sharing them, to bear or put up with someone or something not necessarily liked. Tolerance, then, involves three elements: (1) permitting or allowing (2) a conduct or point of view one disagrees with (3) while respecting the person in the process.
Notice that we can’t tolerate someone unless we disagree with him. This is critical. We don’t “tolerate” people who share our views – they’re on our side – there’s nothing to put up with. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong.
Historically, our culture has emphasized tolerance of all persons, but never tolerance of all behavior. This is a critical distinction because, in the current rhetoric of relativism, the concept of tolerance is most frequently advocated for behavior: premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, use of pornography, etc. People ought to be able to behave the way they want within broad moral limits, the argument goes.
Many leading institutions boast of tolerance as their most cherished virtue. College campuses, courts of law, and businesses educate their employees about the need for tolerance. Ironically, though, there is little tolerance for the expression of contrary ideas on issues of morality. If one advocates a differing view, they are soundly censured as imposing our view on others, as bigoted, narrow minded and intolerant.
In the past, the LBGT community claimed all they wanted was tolerance but that tolerance is now a one-way street with reserved parking for the LBGT community. Their true agenda is the destruction of the Christian community.
Gay activist Tim Gill, founder and cochairman of the Gill Foundation, a Denver based philanthropic organization that supports the LGBT community and their Democratic allies, declared in 2017 that his organization was going “to punish the wicked” who hold traditional views about sexual morality, using his personal wealth, corporate influence and political network to target red states with laws protecting the religious community.
The year before the Gill foundation had rallied more than 100 corporations that included Coca-Cola, Google and Marriott behind a front group called Georgia Prospers, who in turn successfully lobbied Republican Gov. Nathan Deal into vetoing a Religious Freedom Restoration Act. He used the same tactics in North Carolina to defeat a bill that would have stopped transgenders from using the bathroom of their perceived identity.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ rights group, has rallied support from Apple, Amazon, IBM, Coca-Cola and Johnson and Johnson, along with other major corporations, to back the House’s Equality Act. James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, said that while they have been winning court cases to protect LGBT rights, there needs to be a uniform federal law on the books.
What they won’t tell you is that the Equality Act, HR 5, would eliminate protections for Christians under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1994. It would add a crushing burden to the cost of business operations by forcing anyone with 15 or more employees to recognize gender identify and mandate transgender access to opposite-sex restrooms, locker rooms and dressing rooms. In addition businesses would have to include hormone treatment, psychotherapy and gender reassignment surgery to employee’s medical insurance. This bill would not only shut down Christian charities that refuse to participate in the transgender charade, but lead to more parents losing custody of their children, and forever end the concept of women’s sports by allowing more biological males to compete.
In other words, the Equality Act is about everything but equality and would do exactly what Tim Gill threatened to do to Christians.
“In these postmodern times, tolerance is the supreme virtue of the public square. Tolerant people can be broad thinkers, open-minded, and charitable to every worldview—every worldview, that is, except biblical Christianity. The authoritative demands of Jesus Christ are beyond the threshold of postmodern tolerance.” John MacArthur, pastor, Grace Community Church
Source: The Tolerance of Intolerance by Greg Koukl, Stand to Reason; Hating Religious Freedom – When Tolerance Meets Religious Liberty, Religious Liberty Gives Way, Kieren Underwood; Gay mega donor on going after Christians: ‘We’re going to punish the wicked’, Washington Times; The Anything but Equality Act, Franklin County Patriots.
