[Technicolor Musings] Your Tolerance Isn't Appreciated

T-shirt design by OAWAN

The other day, this image was posted on the Doctor Who and the T.A.R.D.I.S. fan page. This was actually a T-shirt design by a person named OAWAN that nicely depicts the interesting interspecies same-sex marriage between two Doctor Who characters - the Silurian Vastra and the human Jenny.

As is the way of the internet, someone had to complain about the image in the comment threat. A user named James had this to add to the discussion:

"ok we get it gay marriage, why not throw up more pictures of straight couples like amy and rory ? yeah we are to be tolerant of everyone but doesn't have to be thrown in our faces every waking min"

Naturally the Whovian community involved in the page were quite to criticize his insensitive statement and stress how Doctor Who is about many values including keeping an open mind for the different possibilities in the universe and other related lessons. And truly, such is the way of the Doctor - to see the good in everything and everyone and of course support their freedom to be their true selves.

That one word - tolerant - can be really grating at times. You tolerate things may you feel uncomfortable or that you don't like but have no choice in terms of whether or not you have to continue to be exposes to that thing. Tolerance is about putting up with something. And thus, to claim that you're such a great person because of how tolerant you are is hardly a true statement. Nor should anyone subject to your "tolerance" feel somehow honored or thankful that you're trying to be less of a douche bag - but not by much.

Ultimately, how the LGBT community is perceived by most has a long way to go. But naturally we do our best to keep up the fight for equality as we try to break such negative stereotypes that push these sorts of statements and behaviors.