My take on the subject is that:
- a small percentage of the general population is willing to accept us, maybe even embrace us
- another small percentage hates us and will persecute us if given the opportunity
- of the remaining majority, some don't approve of us and wish we would crawl back in our closets, but they don't feel so strongly about that they wish to do anything about it, and so they grant us grudging tolerance
- the rest don't care one way or the other and are willing to tolerate us
NOTE: there's a big difference between acceptance and tolerance
