Photo by .lissa.

We might not be the prettiest city in the country, but calling us intolerant is f**king stupid.

Earlier this week The Daily Beast went about ranking the top 20 most tolerant cities in the U.S. with populations over 250,000, weighing everything from hate crimes to same-sex couples and diversity of the population. There were some obvious standouts like San Francisco (3), Seattle (6), Los Angeles (8), Chicago (11) and New York (12), while a number of other cities like Tampa (20), Raleigh (18), Austin (10), Ann Arbor (9), Trenton (7) and Baltimore (5) made the cut. Topping the list? Durham, North Carolina. Nowhere on the list? The District. (The full list, sans slideshow, is here.)

We’ll be the first to admit that picking fights over these sorts of rankings isn’t always a particularly good use of time, because plenty of them aren’t terribly scientific. But this one tried to be. So let’s pick it apart.

In terms of hate crimes, we don’t look very good when stacked up against the cities that did make the cut. According to the FBI, in 2010 there were 57 reported hate crimes in the District. (The overwhelming majority — 35 — were for sexual orientation, and there was an uptick in crimes against transgendered residents last year.) Per capita, that would put D.C. just under 10 hate crimes per 100,000 residents, way over New York (4.2), Los Angeles (3.6) and certainly Durham (0.4). That being said, even the FBI warns that taking its hate crime statistics out of context makes for misleading assessments — some police departments may under-report hate crimes, while others may over-report, for example.

The rankings also do nothing to take into account legal protections for certain groups. The District’s Human Rights Act offers significant protections to all types of residents, and the office that was created to monitor compliance has been around since 1977.

Moving along. Same-sex couples? According to the Census, we’re doing pretty well — 18.1 per 1,000 households. That’s higher than any of the cities on the list. We’re also one of a handful of jurisdictions that allow same-sex marriage. That has to count for something, right? Not according to The Daily Beast, which relied on data measuring support for same-sex marriage that completely excluded the District.

And diversity? Well, in 2010 the District was 50 percent African American, 38 percent white and nine percent Hispanic. We may not always get along and stark divisions may exist between us, but our diversity far exceeds our listed competitors. Not to pick on Austin, but The Daily Beast lists its demographic breakdown as being 76 percent white. Tampa is 80 percent white. Even better, The Daily Beast only listed percentages for white, black and Asian residents for all of the cities. Hispanics? Nope, unless they were just lumped in with white folks.

And religion? According to the most recent data there is, it’s pretty evenly split too.

So there. We’re not perfect, but we’re just about as tolerant as any of the 20 other cities, if not more than some. Except for when it comes to rankings like these. We just can’t take those.