Let's start this discussion with a definition of terms.

Acceptance:

ac-cept-ance

2.
favorable reception; approval; favor.

Tolerance:

tol-er-ance

1.
a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.

2.
a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.

Acceptance and tolerance are not synonyms.

An article in Sunday's Los Angeles Times makes the case that if states are going to legalize gay marriage, then there needs to be stronger conscience protections for religious believers.

What they should not do is what New Hampshire's Senate did last week: pay lip-service to religious freedom while enacting meaningless protections. New Hampshire's bill provides that "members of the clergy ... shall not be obligated ... to officiate at any particular civil marriage or religious rite of marriage in violation of their right to free exercise of religion." But this is a hollow guarantee: The 1st Amendment already provides such protection.

Last month, Connecticut and Vermont became the first states to pass conscience protection for religious dissenters in their same-sex marriage laws. Both states provide that religious groups "shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges to an individual if the request ... is related to the solemnization of a marriage or celebration of a marriage." Both also bar civil suits by people denied such wedding-related services.

Connecticut went even further. In that state, a "religious organization" providing adoption services may continue to place children only with heterosexual married couples as long as it gets no government money. Thus, in Connecticut, unlike in Massachusetts, Catholic Charities will not have to close its doors or face litigation threats.

As important as these exemptions for organizations are, states still weighing same-sex marriage should do better. Wedding advisors, photographers, bakers, caterers and other service providers who prefer to step aside from same-sex ceremonies for religious reasons also need explicit protection.

The author of the piece, Robin Wilson, a law professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law, makes excellent points, but misses the forest for the trees. Gay rights activists don't just want the word "marriage" (in addition to legally identical civil unions), they don't want tolerance of their views and behavior -- they want acceptance.

Any time you hear someone from GLAAD or any other gay rights organization chastise religious believers for "intolerance," realize that most religious believers are very tolerant -- they have a permissive attitude to views that differ from one's own.

That tolerance isn't returned. As Wilson notes in her piece, a photographer in New Mexico was fined $6,000 for refusing to shoot a gay commitment ceremony in that state. Other instances have occurred and more are sure to come.

More persecution of religious believers is on the horizon. Don't expect the gay community to show the same tolerance of other views that they demand for themselves.