Fuck Tolerance

I have been absent from my little blog here, of late, but I've been posting comments on various screenwriting blogs in re the whole gay marriage thing. I've about worn my fingers to stubs trying to coherently explain to various people why the present situation is vastly unfair to gays and lesbians in the United States. You can find those fairly long missives of mine on screenwriter John August's blog, where he does a great job of wittily begging the Guvnernator to sign legslation granting gay marriage rights to Californians. California would have been the only state to have done that without direction from the courts. Sadly, Arnuld decided that he's not the hero he portrays in movies and vetoed the bill. In discussing this with both people on the web (I posted a bit about this on Craig Mazin's site as well) and in person, I keep hearing that straight people need to be more "tolerant" of gays.

Fuck that.

Webster's defines "tolerate" as follows:
Etymology: Latin toleratus, pp. of tolerare to endure, put up with; akin to Old English tholian to bear, Latin tollere to lift up, latus carried (suppletive past participle of ferre), Greek tlEnai to bear
1 : to exhibit physiological tolerance for (as a drug)
2 a : to suffer to be or to be done without prohibition, hindrance, or contradiction b : to put up with

Now, most people mean "to put up with" when they say they are "tolerating" someone.

I said it before and I'll say it again now... FUCK THAT.

See, the way I see it is this. You have no right to sit in judgement of me, therefore you have no right to decide that I must be "tolerated". How'd you feel if straight people need to be "tolerated"? How about those with hazel eyes? A crooked grin? Someone who owns a bischon frise? You'd scoff and claim "there's nothing to tolerate"! You know what, there's nothing to "tolerate" here either. If I have not done something to you, personally, something that is just replusive and beyond the pale, YOU don't get to decide that you will "tolerate" me.

You can either accept or reject me, just don't be so condescending as to declare your "tolerance". I don't need or want it.

Links to the blogs mentioned above:
http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/dear-governor-schwarzenegger-marry-me
http://artfulwriter.com/~clmazin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/101