replying to the left on tolerance

After the Cauchon speech, I spoke to someone who was hard left to the point where she despised the entire institution of marriage and therefore saw gay marriage as simply a pet project of the white gay male in an attempt at being progressive. She also said that the liberals are harvesting the results of their own immigration policies, i.e. letting in immigrants who are conservative in bent and therefore do not fit in with Canadian principles of tolerance. The underlying implication seems to be that there should be some sort of "tolerance check" at the border and calling for an intolerance of tolerance. In response to that I would like to say that I think tolerance involves an acceptance of intolerance (in thought). Or rather to avoid lying (since I substantially dislike majoritarian extremism and often support action aginst it) I should saying tolerance is probably about pragmatism and distance. Tolerance is probably about consistently recognising the view of "the other" and working towards the small steps that seek to respect those points of view. But how can I say one musn't struggle when faced with the violent extremism in the US? I think Cauchon moving on gay marriage using the equality principle is consonant with that approach. In my next post I want to deal with a view (or two) from the right that I had to deal with.