Tolerance is NOT (Always) a Virtue

The Left is always talking about “tolerance,” as if tolerance is the highest virtue.  Having a respectful attitude towards someone whose beliefs differ from yours is tolerance.  Being graceful to others whose dress or behavior  is outside of your comfort zone, but doesn’t harm anyone, is tolerance.  A large number of people with whom you interact on any given day will have beliefs and behavior different from you and peacefully coexisting with them is being tolerant.  And that’s all good.

Tolerance (noun)

1. a fair, respectful, and permissive attitude or policy toward people whose opinions, beliefs, practices, racial or ethnic origins, etc., differ from one’s own or from those of the majority; freedom from bigotry and from an insistence on conformity:

2. interest in, concern for, and openness toward ideas, opinions, practices, etc., that are different from one’s own; a liberal, undogmatic attitude.

3. the act or capacity of enduring; endurance:

4. the act of passively allowing something, especially something wrong, by failing to prevent or stop it; toleration:¹

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But allowing, enduring or tolerating evil or unethical behavior is not a virtue.  Tolerating the stealing from your employer by one of your coworkers is not a virtue.  Tolerating an acquaintance’s physically abusive behavior towards his spouse or sexually predatory behavior towards women is not a virtue.  Tolerating (allowing) a child or other person under your care/protection to do something harmful to themselves or others is not a virtue.

Allowing a person with a mental illness or suffering a delusion to act in accordance with their illness or delusion, to their own harm or the harm of others, is not tolerance; it’s abuse or irresponsibility or callousness.  For example, telling your anorexic daughter “Oh, Darling, yes you are terribly overweight.  Please, don’t eat any more today.”  is not tolerance.  Allowing her to continue in her delusion about her weight without seeking to help her be healed of this illness is not a virtue.  And allowing her delusion may (should?) get you a visit from Child Protective Services (CPS).  Nor is it a virtue to allow without comment the racist or derogatory attitudes and actions of acquaintances that hate blacks or Jews or disabled people.

But somehow in our present day agreeing with your daughter (who has a vagina and xx chromosomes) when she says she’s really a boy gets you applause from the Left, while pointing out the obvious fallacy of her statement gets you that visit from CPS (in some States).

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Adults have values that they have developed based on life experiences, a study of ethics, or religious beliefs, and if those around us have different values, we must be kind and friendly to them.  But if the value they hold is wrong and harmful to them or others, to the extent we have influence, we should encourage them to avoid the harmful behavior resulting from that value. 

There is a nuance here, because when we are dealing with an adult, we can be tolerant of their activities/behavior/attitude if it doesn’t hurt anyone or force us to act delusional.² We may choose to use what influence we have to encourage them to reconsider their actions but should be tolerant if they choose not to change.  But if it is a minor (or other person) under our care/protection and their activities/behavior/ attitude is harmful, we should not tolerate it.  It is our moral duty to influence them and to the extent we have authority, prevent them from being harmed or harming others. 

Sex change surgeries, puberty blockers (which studies suggest do not “just pause” development)³ and cross-sex hormones make permanent changes to the human body (and particularly the reproductive system).  While we may try to influence our adult friends and (to the extent we are able) help them make informed decisions, we can choose to accept the decisions they make.

But if a person is a minor under our authority, and especially if they want to take irreversible steps to transition, we cannot just stand by and allow them be harmed. Human brains don’t fully develop, particularly the long-range planning function, until we are in our mid-twenties⁴ so a young person (anyone under 25) is biologically incapable of making good long range decisions. They should not be making decisions that result in permanent changes their body and reproductive capability.

To say that the child “knows,” and that parents should submit to whatever the child wants, ignores “the science” and is lunacy of the highest order.  This is true of all long-term irreversible decisions a child may make.  Unfortunately, it is a woke mantra. And in addition to being crazy, it’s immoral by any moral code that includes “do no harm” or “do unto others.”  Calling these irreversible options “gender affirming” is pure Orwellian double-speak.⁵

We have fallen into an immoral pit of harm and must regain our sanity and morality. We must not call “a man a woman” or “a woman a man.” As Matt Walsh so humorously and poignantly pointed out in “What Is a Woman,”⁶ there has always been a common-sense scientific answer to this question; until the Orwellian woke culture virus destroyed some peoples’ ability to think rationally.  And those of us who have not succumbed to the woke virus need to avoid going along with the delusional double-speak.  When we go along with the delusion, we not only harm the person living the delusion but we harm everyone else around us by showing them by our example that living by lies is okay.

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What has been stated in this post is objectively true.  But it is not subjectively true for the people caught up in it, so a sensitive and caring approach to discuss it is required.  And there are many agendas promoting the idea of transitioning to be the “authentic you.”  An examination of all those agendas is beyond the scope of this post (but will be addressed in future posts).

We want to note that it is easy to state the objective truth and quite another to be a parent faced with a child who believes that he or she should transition. We have immense compassion for the parents who face this heart wrenching situation with the children they love and cherish. We would encourage our readers to read some of their stories in the Substack “Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT)” to better understand what it is like to walk this out in real life. I guarantee you that their stories will impact you (and give you a new prayer burden).

For now, let it be said that we must act with compassion and (to the extent it is morally possible) tolerance.  But just as it is not love to encourage an anorexic daughter to not eat, it is not love to encourage gender confused minors to make irreversible changes to their bodies.  And on the societal level, it is harmful to society as a whole to “live by lies.”  Be strong and be loving always and be tolerant when you can.

1. Definition from Dictionary.com    https://www.dictionary.com/browse/tolerance

2. Rod Dreher wrote a book, Live Not By Lies, documenting the ways that communist countries in the 20th Century dominated their populace. Forcing them to speak and live lies is a key aspect of bending the will of people to the dictators. Look for a post on this important book soon.

3. There is a lot of debate on this topic, with little longitudinal data available, and the safety and effectiveness opinions falling along predictable political lines. An online search will turn up links supporting whatever position you want. Here is a pretty balanced view from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/health/puberty-blockers-transgender.html

4. Understanding the Teen Brain – Stanford https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=understanding-the-teen-brain-1-3051

The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know – NIH https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know

5. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, everyone was forced to believe falsehoods like 2+2=5.

6. Here is the trailer for “What Is a Woman?” https://www.dailywire.com/clips/what-is-a-woman-official-trailer