Reply #117: That division is artificial.

[Xithras]

Political acceptance requires personal acceptance. Take gay adoption as an example. You probably look at that as a political right, and take the obtaining of that right as political acceptance. But to ACCEPT a gay couple as parents, straights have to also accept that the relationship itself is legitimate and that the couple would make acceptable parents. That requires personal acceptance. If gays are given the right to adopt without being accepted as good and equal parents, they are being tolerated, not accepted. Acceptance requires an acknowledgment that the other person is an equal human being. Rights without this kind of acceptance is merely toleration.

Same with gay marriage, inheritance rights, etc.

As a bisexual man, I fully agree that acceptance is the goal. Attacking the term "tolerance" is counterintuitive to this goal, because tolerance is an important and necessary step toward acceptance. People will not simply make the leap from intolerance to acceptance. First they hate us, then they tolerate us, then they accept us, then they embrace us. That's how it has to work.