What is tolerance?

A recent Fox News poll revealed an almost perfect three-way split among Americans about building an Islamic cultural center near ground zero: those who oppose the mosque and want it stopped, those who oppose the mosque but think it should be allowed, and those who support the mosque. These three groups rather neatly illustrate a simple concept most people misunderstand: tolerance.

Who is being tolerant here? By definition, the first group is being intolerant by trying to prevent the mosque. (Keep in mind that sometimes intolerance is good, such as of slavery.) The last group is neither being tolerant nor intolerant. They are supporters and so the concept simply doesn’t apply to them. Only the middle group is being tolerant. They dislike the thing and yet they refuse to forcibly prevent it from being built. Even if they try to verbally persuade the builders to stop construction, they are still being perfectly tolerant.

Of course, none of this analysis settles which group is right. The point is simply that if you want to educate people about what tolerance means and does not mean, the ground zero mosque is a phenomenally lucid illustration.