Some thoughts on Separation of Church and State
by Susan Jacoby - Excerpt from Freethinkers
In his celebrated speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial
Association on September 12, 1960, Democratic presidential candidate
John F. Kennedy declared unequivocally that he believed "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." Kennedy went on to make it
clear that he regarded the Jeffersonian wall of separation not as
a flexible metaphor but as the foundation of the American system of
government. He reminded his audience, composed heavily of evangelical
Protestants, that Jefferson's religious freedom act in Virginia was
strongly supported by Baptists who had endured persecution both in
England and in America. With a nod to the non-religious, the candidate
also expounded his vision of American as a nation "where every man
has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice."
Kennedy's speech was widely regarded as one of the turning points
of his campaign; he was addressing the fears not only of southern
evangelicals, who in 1928 had rejected Al Smith because of his Catholicism,
but of mainstream Protestants and Jews, who also had serious reservations
about a Catholic in the White House. Norman Vincent Peale, the best-known
Protestant cleric to voice his doubts, had flown in from New York
for Kennedy's speech and press conference. |
…today [JFK's] forthright support for a "wall of separation"
would antagonize not only the evangelicals he won over in 1960 but
the hierarchy of his own church. Kennedy's belief in an America where
"no church or church school" would be eligible for tax support has
been rejected by nearly all Republicans and a fair number of Democrats,
fearful of being left behind as the faith-based bandwagon rolls on.
As for the Catholic Church, the authoritarian Pope John Paul II …created
problems for American Catholic politicians who thought that "dual
loyalty" issues had been laid to rest in Kennedy's generation. In
January 2003, the Vatican issued an innocuously titled "Doctrinal
Note on Some Questions regarding the Participation of Catholics in
Political Life," but the bland packaging was misleading. The "doctrinal
note" was an order to Catholic officeholders to toe the line on abortion,
physician-assisted suicide, and gay marriage - even if official church
teaching conflicted with the politician's personal conscience and
sense of public duty. (Senator Edward M. Kennedy, commenting on the
Vatican effort to turn back the clock for American Catholic politicians,
referred to his brother's Houston declaration that "I do not speak
for my church on public matters - and the church does not speak for
me.") |
"…no man shall be compelled to frequent or support
any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall
be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or
goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious
opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess,
and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion,
and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect
their civil capacities."
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The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom,
Thomas Jefferson, 1786
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