Liberalism Requires Tolerance

To the editors:

When the Crimson staff ("Vote Seton, Redmond For Council Leadership," Dec. 8) says that Chris King and Fentrice Driskell's ties to campus religious groups "have raised concerns among many students," is this not code for the Crimson staff's own unease with the candidates' religiosity? If not, when did the Crimson identify these offended students? I am not a King-Driskell partisan, but this is because of what I see as the candidates' overly vague proposals, and not because of the candidates' affiliation with religious groups.

I fear that what the Crimson staff meant to say, if they had been forthright, is that students' ties to evangelical Christianity frightens them in a way that, say, students' involvement with ethnic or progressive groups does not. The Crimson displays a severe double standard; a good number of the council presidential and vice-presidential candidates have ties to a wide variety of student groups, but the Crimson staff does not cite those ties as hindrances to those candidates' effectiveness. It seems that among liberals, bias against religion may be one of the last acceptable prejudices. ADAM R. KOVACEVICH '99   Dec. 8, 1998