What a wimpy request! “Please tolerate me! Please allow me to exist in your presence!”. What’s something that sounds stronger? Something more of demand than a plea?
Bow before me. Now.
Kneel before Zod?
You will stop hassling me or you will die. Painfully.
I know what you mean. I’ve given up asking to be tolerated, as if I were a mild head-cold. Now I demand to be recognized as an equal member of society, with my relationships and my lover treated with equal reverence as straight ones. It doesn’t mean just putting up with individuals - it means equal fairness, equal respect, and equal choices.
Also, finally being hailed as QUEEN OF BLOODY EVERYTHING would be nice.
Your tiara don’t mean shit! 
Accept the Rule of the Dino and move on already!
Could you elaborate, matt_mcl? What do you desire that you currently do not have? And how should the force of law be used to achieve the goal?
For a start how about recognising that we gay folks are just as likely to fall in love across borders as straight folks and give us the legal right to enter other countries on those grounds as they do straight couples.
Yes, I could marry her brother but I really don’t want to when it is she that I love and I have an aversion to law-breaking.
whoops sorry, I am not matt-mcl
I’m all for that first bit, but honey, that title is already taken.
OK.
:Ahem:
ALL HAIL MATT_MCL, QUEEN OF EVERYTHING BLOODY!!
…
Wait a second. That’s not right, is it?
Eh. Close enough.
Well, let’s see. There’s the part about the constant glorification of heterosexuality everywhere, in every part of the media, society, and whatnot, and next to near radio silence about anything Queer. There’s the part about the all-pervading assumption that we are gonna pair off into opposite-gender couples and have a gender identity that’s multiple-choice instead of fill-in-the-blank. There’s how if my brother talks about his girlfriend, they’re young people in love, and if I talk about my boyfriend I’m flaunting my sexuality. It’s about how other relationships are celebrated and congratulated, but mine is somehow titillating, alarming, discomforting, or obscene. There’s how I am at sharply increased risk of being harassed, insulted, discriminated against, beaten, tortured, or killed randomly for no other reason than the shape of someone else’s genitals. There’s how my younger brothers and sisters are hard-put to get the slightest message, word, indication, role model that they are not worthless and how they’re at disproportionate risk of suicide, added onto the discrimination from others they already face. There’s how it’s a vicious uphill struggle to have any kind of self-esteem. There’s how our existence is erased from history, literature, and popular culture as if two guys or two girls in love was more unmentionable than the Holocaust. And there’s the fact that if it’s like this in Europe and North America, it must be worse everywhere else. Does that answer your question?
Oh, so you’re saying you want special rights, then? 
O.K… so how do we fix the problem?
Well, I think we’re getting off the Op topic, which I might not bother to drag it back to if it didn;t have everything to do with what matt said.
The problem with “tolerance” is it does seem to imply an act of restraint of the part of the “normal people” (heterosexuals, whites, Christians, whatever the majority) in that they allow the anomalies to exist and graciously refrain from shooting them on sight.
When of course it’s not about one group allowing another to exist, but the much better idea that we all have the right to be here to begin with.
I, myself, would not put up with being tolerated :).
Yeah. Good luck with that. And tell me when you raise your pagan God of the Dead, you fool.
In the real world, the most you can ever ask of any person is to tolerate others. At least they’re showing you a little bit of respect. If you want more, challenge them to a duel or something.
What are you saying, Crafter-Man? We can’t come up with a single, quick, obvious solution to fix the problem, so let’s not bother trying, it isn’t worth the time?
Oh, I know what you can do! Treat all people as equal members of society, all of whom can experience the same joy, or pain, or love, or anything else in life that you can.
Is it okay if I just barely tolerate everybody equally? I sometimes have days where that’s about the best I can do.
See, even George Washington agrees with me. Now what, Eternal?
That’s the whole point, no one should have to ask anyone anything, “as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights”.
Was this rant in response to a particular thread? Event/happening, unpleasantness in your life? Or did you suddenly just come in and decide to rant about the concept of tolerance at large?
Was your rant regarding tolerance based on the same disagreement with the concept of “tolerance toward homosexuality” as is eloquently discussed in other posts in this thread? Or was your rant a more general one?
(those aren’t flippant or meant to be snide questions, I’m incurably curious about most stuff, thanx).