ABSTRACT
Tolerance is a very demanding concept, because it entails making allowances for what one finds distasteful or even worse. Protected by the constitutional guarantees in place, American citizens can presume that the state must meet a very high bar before official intolerance can manifest itself regarding their conscientious beliefs, or questionable voluntary association, if ever it can. Tolerance was an early Christian concern, when defenders of the new faith were on the defensive, competing for adherents in the religiously plural Roman Empire. In modern usage, tolerance may find its grounds in either prudence or rationality, or find itself affirmed as an independent moral principle in its own right, far beyond the sense that tolerance is a public indulgence when one does not truly have to endure the dislikable. Analysis of American constitutionalism through the lens of the concept of tolerance helps to give meaning to and put into perspective unpopular claims to equality and exercise of basic rights and liberties.
