Philosophy professor J. Budziszewski has made some interesting observations on the virtue of tolerance. True tolerance requires good judgment about when to put up with things with which we disapprove. However, by the new, distorted definition, tolerance requires something different than good judgment -- it requires "neutrality," which means suspending judgment altogether. According to Dr. Budziszewski's 1999 book The Revenge of Conscience, the neutralist must make use of one of three fallacies:

1. The Quantitative Fallacy: "The more ideas and behaviors you are able to tolerate, the more tolerant you are."

2. The Skeptical Fallacy: The best foundation for tolerance is to avoid having strong convictions about anything; therefore, "The more you doubt, the more tolerant you are."

3. The Apologetic Fallacy: If you cannot help having strong convictions, then the most tolerant thing to do is to "Keep your convictions to yourself." You should not discuss them with others, nor act upon them.

But "neutralism," Dr. Budziszewski observes, is never practiced consistently. Rather, it is used as a weapon for demoralizing opponents. "The neutralist, too, has convictions," he says. These are convictions about the things the neutralist himself thinks should be tolerated--for example, aberrant sexual behaviors.

Even the ACLU, supposedly a defender of all civil liberties, backs certain types of rights and shuns disfavored causes--like the desire to change from gay to straight--by redefining them as "prejudices."

But true tolerance, Dr. Budziszewski says, cannot mean that we accept all behaviors. It does not imply we should put up with false statements in a debate, or allow rape; nor does it imply we should be neutral about everything, because "there is no neutral ground in the universe." Instead, true tolerance means that we decide to put up with some bad things for the sake of a greater good. But we cannot evade making decisions about what, in fact, those bad and good things actually are.

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