Hello from normally sunny California

[fredv3b]

On what basis though, the numbers speak for themselves. More Americans favour increased rights for homosexuals than Italians.

I totally agree, my point about whether Americans are tolerant or not. Also in a legalistic society such as the United States the question of legal rights is considered far more important than in Italy, where compliance with the law is a much more relaxed affair.

Also, without getting too much into semantics, tolerance does not imply what you tolerate is wrong, tolerance is defined by a permissive attitude towards what differs from yourself.

It's a reasonable point that my definition was too narrow, but yours is far too broad.