The JFK Religion Speech that Makes Rick Santorum Sick
In September of 1960, Senator Kennedy, presidential candidate, delivered a speech about religion in politics to the Ministerial Association at Rice Hotel in Houston, TX. Current GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum recently said that the speech made him sick.
Santorum said, “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country … to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up.”
What did John F. Kennedy actually say in the landmark speech?
Excerpt of Kennedy Speech:
[B]ecause I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured – perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again – not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me – but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute – where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote – where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference – and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish – where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source – where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials – and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
Full Speech Text from the American Presidency Project
Tags: JFK, Kennedy, Presidents, Speeches, Television
