Is This What You Mean By Tolerance?

["Gregory Dickison" <gdickison@moscow.com>]

Dear Visioneers:

 

All this discussion about restaurants and civil rights reminded me of a homely story from our very own melting pot of north Idaho. The city of Sandpoint dedicated a "Tolerance" sculpture in August, and the Spokane Spokesman-Review carried an article on August 18 describing the consequent warm fuzzies being felt in the community. (The original article had a picture of the alleged art, apparently so that visitors would not confuse it with a logging-truck accident).

 

The article included several examples of how the locals had exuded tolerance when confronted with those different than themselves. Cited as one such instance of progressive diversity and inclusion was an incident at the Swan's Landing restaurant, where lots of tolerant people apparently hang out. Instead of quietly eating whatever it is tolerant people eat, letting others be free to be them, these multi-cultural souls "refused to be silent." In a spontaneous outpouring of love and goodwill, they "stood up" and "hounded a well-known racist and anti-Semite," identified in the article as one Vincent Bertollini, "out of [the] restaurant." Apparently, it made lots of people feel really good about themselves. Mind you, this did not appear on the comics page, but in the serious part.

 

A query (or two): is this what y'all mean by tolerance, and is this a legitimate example of it? And if the owner cannot toss people out of his restaurant because he does not like their religion or ideas, why can his patrons toss out another paying customer just because they don't like his religion or ideas? Why do those who don't own the property have more rights than the guy who does own the property, and why do they get to discriminate when the owner doesn't?

 

Just wondering.

 

Gregory C. Dickison
Lawyer & Counselor at Law
Post Office Box 8846
312 South Main Street
Moscow, Idaho 83843
(208) 882-4009