- Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the niggers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have? 

- The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting. 

 From The Good Shepherd

During the recent VP debate, Sarah Palin gave an emphatic description of herself as "tolerant" in relation to gay couples. She said: 

But I also want to clarify, if there's any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue.

But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties. 

Expressing "tolerance" of something is by no means the same as acknowledging it as a right. In fact, "tolerance" conveys a somewhat reluctant willingness to put up with something repugnant.

There is no suprise in Palin's position on gay relationships. But standing on tolerance, rather than acknowledging a right. To me, it came across as an unintentional expression of an attitude that America belongs to the evangelical right, to those who are just like Palin, and everyone else is just visiting, on sufferance.

 Am I reading too much into it?