Reworking Ur Group's Mission Statement? "Acceptance" better than "Tolerance

I'd like to suggest "acceptance" as a better alternative than "tolerance" if you happen to bre reworking your activist group's mission statement.


More from the Great 19th Century Progressive Robert G. Ingersoll on the "Limits of Tolerance":

There is another phrase to which I object -- "toleration." "The limits of toleration." Why say "toleration"? I will tell you why. When the thinkers were in the minority -- when the philosophers were vagabonds -- when the men with brains furnished fuel for bonfires -- when the majority were ignorantly orthodox -- when they hated the heretic as a last year's leaf hates a this year's bud -- in that delightful time these poor people in the minority had to say to ignorant power, to conscientious rascality, to cruelty born of universal love: "Don't kill us; don't be so arrogantly meek as to burn us; tolerate us." At that time the minority was too small to talk about rights, and the great big ignorant majority when tired of shedding blood, said: "Well, we will tolerate you; we can afford to wait; you will not live long, and when the Being of infinite compassion gets hold of you we will glut our revenge through an eternity of joy; we will ask you every now and then, 'What is your opinion now?'"

Both feeling absolutely sure that infinite goodness would have his revenge, they "tolerated" these thinkers, and that word finally took the place almost of liberty. But I do not like it. When you say "I tolerate," you do not say you have no right to punish, no right to persecute. It is only a disclaimer for a few moments and for a few years, but you retain the right. I deny it.