TOLERANCE VERSUS AFFIRMATION

Since I mentioned the difference between tolerance and affirmation, I got the following comment on my last post, CHAOS COMING TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.

“Democrats define “tolerance” as affirmation. Even when they sin, the people must approve of their sins.”

I prefer the dictionary definition of tolerance: “the capacity to endure continued subjection to something…without adverse reaction.” In other words, tolerance is used when something unwanted is forced upon us, like we tolerate a toothache until we can go to the dentist, or tolerate a little brother until he grows up.

Acceptance (or affirmation as you use it) is a COMPLETELY different kettle of fish. One either tolerates or one accepts; there literally isn’t a middle ground.

Since nothing else in your post seems to have anything to do with the difference between tolerance and acceptance, I’ll offer one really good example:

Gay marriage: Acceptance is celebrating the fact that everyone can benefit from being legally married. Tolerance is not fighting against laws that make it legal while silently fuming against the death of “traditional” marriage. Intolerance is actively fighting against the expansion of marriage as though gay marriages somehow take something away from heterosexual marriages.

• @Catherine

  Judges literally invented the “right” of same-sex marriage. That “right” didn’t exist because same-sex marriage is an oxymoron. Your example, “gay marriage,” is exactly what I suggested in my post. Instead of just putting up with their neighbor’s right to make a fool of himself, you want the government to force everyone to affirm same-sex sex as righteous through legal marriage.

  Imagine some guy thinks the sun come out at night. Just to make this guy happy, does everyone else have to pretend the sun comes out at night? That is sort of nonsense you are demanding with same-sex marriage. Just because the harm is subtle doesn’t mean it does not exist.

  Note we do play with the clock. So we have just made a one-hour shift. Why stop there? If we can “save” one hour, why not two? Why not twelve?

Being tolerant of something we do not like is painful. The tolerant and the tolerated must usually endure an unpleasant relationship. Imagine enduring stares and the nonverbal signals from someone who you know disapproves of you. That can become like enduring an obnoxious stench. We want it to go away, but it just won’t. All we can do is endure, separate ourselves from whatever it is that reeks, or destroy the source of the stench.

Affirming something we don’t like, however, is far worse. That demands hypocrisy from us. That demands a lie. Whereas tolerance just requires perseverance, if we are forced by those in authority to affirm something we know is wrong or untrue, we have to sell a bit of our soul to the devil or pay the price of being true to our beliefs.

Because it has nothing to do with procreation, there is no reason to expect two people of the same sex to form a long-term, stable sexual relationship. That’s not the way we were designed. When two people of the opposite sex come together and have sex, however, there is at least the possibility of having a child. Raising a child requires a serious commitment. The Bible uses the depth of that commitment, marriage, to model the relationship God expects us to have with Him. Because it is just a hypocritical pretense designed to hide a sin, same-sex “marriage” makes a joke out of marriage; it belittles that which we should hold sacred.

What happens when a society insist that people affirm truths they rightly should only be required to tolerate? Such societies must approve — affirm — liars.