What is tolerance?

I'm sorry. I've had this little political post in my queue for a while so I figured I'd get it out of draft mode and post it. I found this comment in an online article about the Miss California comment in the recent Miss America pageant. This guy gives a great summation of a main problem in this country. I was so excited when I read it. I'm pretty sure I did a mental punch in the air with an exclamation of "That's right man!"

I believe we have completely changed the meaning of the word “tolerant” in this country. “Tolerant” used to mean that you respected individuals but that you could agree to disagree. Thanks to extreme progressive groups such as the ACLU “tolerant” now means you have to agree that everyone’s point of view is equally correct and that there is no absolute moral truth; moral truth is what each individual says it is. How twisted we have become when you are labeled a “homophobe” just because you believe homosexuality is wrong or that marriage should be between a man and a woman alone. You are automatically branded a bigot and subhuman. I still believe that you have to respect other people; you have to show them respect and treat them with dignity, but I do not believe a person is “intolerant” simply because they choose to disagree with others on issues such as homosexuality. In fact, I would argue that those who claim such people as intolerant are equally guilty of interolance. Finally, just so we don’t get too full of ourselves, conservatives have done themselves no favors in this matter. We have clearly treated homosexuality as somehow worse than any other kind of sin and have not always treated the gay community with basic respect and dignity all the while we have been guilty of equal sin when we flip someone off in traffic, tell a white lie to our bosses, have heterosexual extramarital affairs. Sin is sin, there are no levels. And no one is better than anyone else.