Advocates for toleration, in short, simply wish to impose their own tastes and values on everyone else under the guise of tolerance.

From Tolerance: Between Forbearance and Acceptance by Hans Oberdiek.

Susan Mendus, whose many thoughtful writings on tolerance have informed this study, provides one statement of toleration's paradox:

[N]ormally we count toleration as a virtue in individuals and a duty in societies. However, where toleration is based on moral disapproval [as opposed to mere dislike], it implies that the thing being tolerated is wrong and ought not to exist. The question which then arises is why . . . it should be thought good to tolerate.

The paradox arises because we appear to believe both that we have conclusively good reasons against tolerating a given attitude, belief, action, practice, person or way of life—and equally compelling reasons for doing so. This is not because the reasons are equally balanced, at least not at the same level of reasoning. Instead, we are confident that we are right and they are wrong, but that for reasons of a different kind we should let them alone. This seems highly paradoxical, even irrational, and, a critic might add, clearly wicked, for if we are confident in our reasons, why should we tolerate anything that opposes our beliefs, attitudes, or practices? Why allow people to do that or believe that which we know is hideously wrong or deeply misguided? Is not this the paradoxical position of tolerating the intolerable, the "basic problem" of tolerance identified by Williams?

In response to this paradox, some have deliberately rejected toleration as either attitude or practice. We have already cited Bishop Bossuet's vivid remark that "I have the right to persecute you because I am right and you are wrong." This unequivocally avoids the paradox, but in a way that almost everyone would find objectionable. The trick will be to unravel the paradox so that those like Bossuet can confidently affirm their faith and moral commitments without feeling the need to act intolerantly toward those with whom they are profoundly at odds.

There is a further paradox. What is the difference, in practice, between tolerating the intolerable — which we seem to be asking Bossuet to do — and accepting it? Is not demanding that Bossuet tolerate Protestants tantamount to demanding that, as a matter of public acknowledgment, he must also accept their beliefs, ways of worship, and so on? Not "accept" in the sense of converting to Protestantism but "accept" in the sense of admitting that Protestantism is either as good as or nearly as good as Catholicism. We often do accept differences in this sense. One person, say, firmly believes that the best of classical music is superior to the best of jazz yet fully accepts that jazz is good.

May we force Bossuet to take this stance to Protestantism? But then, as far as outward behavior goes, it will look to all the world as if he accepts that Catholicism and Protestantism are equally good. Surely this places him in an untenable position. But why stop here? If we wish to ensure that French Protestants are truly tolerated, why even allow Bossuet to voice his objections? After all, if thought is father to the deed, then surely expressing one's thoughts might father many intolerant deeds, at least to the extent that he persuades others. Were it possible — and maybe with modern techniques of "reeducation" it now is — would it not be best to stop Bossuet from harboring his bigoted thoughts in the first place? But now tolerance, which presents itself as the mildest of demands, seems to take a sinister turn — a turn to oppression of those who think in nonprescribed ways. And what is this, paradoxically, but intolerance?

Yet another puzzling paradox about tolerance is this. No one can (or should) tolerate everything. Advocates of toleration always have in mind toleration of this, not toleration of that. Today many people, for example, call for tolerance to homosexuals and homosexual conduct. But this is disingenuous, say critics, for in their heart of hearts, these same people do not believe that there is anything whatever wrong with homosexuality. Were they honest, therefore, they would call for acceptance, not tolerance. Advocates for toleration, in short, simply wish to impose their own tastes and values on everyone else under the guise of tolerance. They do so because they know they cannot convince most people that homosexuality, say, is a good way to live. realizing this, they fall back on toleration. in their own eyes, however, it is only a second-best, stopgap position. They will advocate toleration until "bigots" change their minds, give up, become indifferent, or die out.

This disingenuousness, not to say hypocrisy, is easily shown, for those who proudly call themselves tolerant do not take kindly to admonitions that they show the same tolerance to what others accept but that they strongly believe to be unjustifiable.