Who's "We" Ian?
Is the author talking about White, middle class,senior citizens like himself?
People under 50 have no memory of the "old ways" so we kind of resent this idea that we're anything but a tolerant and pluralistic mob.

Again find myself having to agree with Jon J.
Religion/false belief by the bucket load, has caused more wars, and completely unnecessary deaths, than anything else in recorded history.
What may yet prevent more of the same, is a belief in irrefutable truth, rather than fondly held, but entirely impossible to prove, myth and legend!
Some of it clearly created by sanctimonious, puerile parsimonious pulpit pounding psychopaths, who would be at least treated with medicine today, or in some cases, interned for the rest of their natural lives?
When that terribly incessant insistent voice in your head, tells you to kill, it is clearly not the voice of God, who forbids it!
But rather, some much more malevolent, (the devil made me do it) miscreant!
It can be most disconcerting to hear a voice coming out of thin air, but even more disconcerting, when you actually understand what it is saying!
If you want access to irrefutable truth, then you need first to seek ye the kingdom of God within, or put another way, learn to meditate!
And chose a teacher who just does not include his or her dogma or false belief.
Just the nuts and bolts of meditation stripped of all dogma.
Once you have accomplished this task, you will find all your questions are progressively, replaced with a knowing and a certainty, that comes from a universal well of knowledge, that is as old as time itself and sometimes surprising common agreement.
The only people that can't meditate, are very small children, because their attention span is too short, and or, the criminally insane, who just can't empty their mind of thoughts/monkey chatter, and just learn to listen!
And those who just don't want to know the truth, given it conflicts with their former false belief system, a was the enunciated case for Edgar Casey, sometimes referred to as the sleeping prophet!?
Rhrosty.

Ian Nance "Muslim-bashing is the current fashionable practice."

For Muslims, infidel-bashing is always in fashion.

Australian Protestants versus Catholics.
And what was the death toll from that war?

"Let’s bash a bogan, not a Muslim!"

WTF!
You just lost any credibility you ever had.

Bogan. (noun) multiculturalist code word for White Australian.

It's all very well to "tolerate" those people already living amongst us.
But that doesn't mean we must "tolerate" the ludicrous political fairytale bringing that imposed "diversity" about.

We should tolerate irresponsible recklessness, treason and our own genocide?!

Jon J "Dismantle religion, and tolerance will no longer be an issue."

Oh, I'm sure people would find a zillion other things to fight over.

phanto "When the Catholic Church takes over the city streets for a parade they impinge on others to be able to drive down the street unhindered"

They pay a fee for that.
As would you if you wanted a parade of your own.

Ian, I'm not sure why you chose to use the example you did in your opening paragraph to set the tone of your article. It is actually incorrect on what happened and when.

But the notion of tolerance is a very interesting subject. Both the Right and Left side of politics have views on what is NOT tolerable and try to enforce these views on others.

Generally without being able to have a logical and rational discussion on why something would be tolerable or intolerable.

The Left is probably more prone to being 'tolerant' giving them the label of being moral relativists.

The Right is likely to be less tolerant as in their world view there are more clear descriptive notions on right and wrong.

Phanto
There is a difference between rights and tolerance; in fact, tolerance often means not exercising one’s rights. Rights are things one is entitled to assert regardless of others’ disapproval or inconvenience – e.g. my right to free speech despite your disagreement with what I say. Tolerance goes beyond entitlement and is extended voluntarily to another person.

Tolerance is a sign of strength, not weakness. It shows the person exercising it to be willing to show forbearance when confronted with something they disapprove of or are inconvenienced by. I tolerate my neighbour’s teenage son practicing drums in the evenings even though it’s against council rules. I tolerate learner drivers who drive very slowly and unintentionally break the road rules.

Tolerance is a social glue of mutual respect and empathy necessary to a civilised society.

Jon J,

>>Dismantle religion, and tolerance will no longer be an issue. <<

How true that is! For us who lived through a Stalinist regime (that had dismantled religion), tolerance was certainly no longer an issue. The issue was mere survival: cultural but for many also biological.