Tolerance and Acceptance
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011By William J. Dell
Amore Dei, Familiae, Patriae ducit !
Tolerance and Acceptance are mutually exclusive of each other. One cannot be both tolerant and accepting at the same time because once a tolerant person become accepting of any attitude or activity there is no longer any reason to be tolerant of that attitude or activity. The difficulty with these mutually exclusive terms in civil society is that minority groups tend to define “tolerance” as “acceptance.” This tends to place the civil society in the position of “the tail wagging the dog.”
In a civil society where families and individuals come together to form a community, state or nation those forming the civil society have a right to determine the parameters and limits of their mutual association. They may be tolerant of persons within their midst holding differing attitudes but they as a society do not have to accept the minority attitudes for their society.
Those with the minority attitudes are at liberty to go elsewhere and establish a civil society based upon their attitudes and activities as a majority. Such was the case with those who fled Europe to the New World so that they could worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. It is interesting that once here they set up their “civil societies” based upon similar intolerance that they had just fled. For example, in New England if you did not belong to the “accepted” church of the several colonies, you were not permitted to own land or hold elective office.
Following this standard the majority of the thirteen colonies and later the original thirteen States had established “state religions” albeit they were all “Christian” religions. In fact, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, who formed the “civil society” of Rhode Island were expelled (more…)




