Gallaudet University, a liberal arts college located in Washington, D.C., recently awarded a Ph.D. to Angela McCaskill.
Interestingly enough,  McCaskill, who was given the position at Gallaudet as a diversity officer, was also recently put on paid leave by Gallaudet.
Why? Because she signed a petition which might make it possible for voters in Maryland to be able to vote on overturning the state’s same-sex marriage laws.
Does the school think McCaskill is intolerant and bigoted for doing this?
It would appear so. The school’s reasoning is insane.
If you don’t understand what I mean, I encourage you to think about tolerance a little harder.
To tolerate something is to put up with something, or to endure it.
But as we know, we don’t put up with or endure things in which we do not agree. That would be absurd.
Not only absurd, but it wouldn’t be tolerance.
Practicing true tolerance requires disagreement; it requires dissension.
But as the administrators at Gallaudet prove, our society has discarded real tolerance and has replaced it with a kind that says, “You disagree with me? Then you’re intolerant.”
It necessitates complete neutrality, and it limits people from picking sides on social issues.
This is dangerous.
As with the Gallaudet example, this kind of thinking puts people on administrative leave for holding views that don’t run with the status quo.
It invariably forecloses the possibility of actually practicing true tolerance, because it removes any discord from the conversation.
Another problem with the modern notion of tolerance is that it is contradictory in nature.
The folks responsible for removing McCaskill seem to be oblivious to the fact that they are doing the very thing that they accuse McCaskill of doing – they are being intolerant of her view.
Isn’t there something wrong here?
If this example seems a bit far off, think about conversations you’ve had with your peers.
Have you ever been labeled as intolerant for something you’ve said?
Now, I don’t mean to make excuses for people who truly are intolerant and mean-spirited about the way they handle differences of ideas.
I’m merely trying to say we need to stop and think about tolerance, so we can stop unfairly branding people as bigoted for disagreeing with us.
Because as McCaskill proves, these people might be the only ones practicing real tolerance.
As to why people abuse the idea of tolerance? I think it’s because of fear. 
We find it so much easier to dismiss someone as a bigot than to engage with them in dialogue. It’s a cop out.
We’re afraid of conversations where disagreement might surface, because we’re afraid to be wrong.
We need to embrace healthy discord. That’s how we learn.