It's not about tolerance.

I had an interesting conversation with an old friend recently. She was complaining that a certain popular TV show (one that I don't happen to watch) had gone overboard with gay-positive messaging. As a result, she had lost interest -- in spite of ostensibly being gay-positive herself. I'm no fan of being beaten over the head with a message either, but my friend's next comment made me wonder if her perspective on the issue wasn't somewhat skewed. "It's about tolerance. If people want tolerance, they should be tolerant of others' points of view, too." I used to think along the same lines: everyone should accept each other's opinions and heck, just get along already. I no longer agree. When it comes to inequality, there is no reason to simply tolerate the opinion of anyone who would deny other people rights that they themselves enjoy. Doing so contributes to oppression.

Happy Pride, everyone. We should ALL be proud of who we are (except for self-righteous douchebags who believe in different rights for different people -- you should be ashamed of yourselves).