Reply #81: Religious Tests, Bigotry and the Race for the White House [View All]

Growing up in the 1960s, I saw first-hand the religious bigotry that John F. Kennedy encountered over his Catholic faith.

Kennedy arrived at a time when the nation was desperate for someone young, fresh and purposeful to steer us out of the morass of conflict, civil unrest and economic uncertainty in which the country seemed to be mired. And yet despite Kennedy's attempts to campaign on the issues of the day, it was his Catholicism that took center stage, at least during the early days of his campaign. Opponents stirred up fears among a largely Protestant America that a Catholic in the White House would result in the Pope running the country and compromise the constitutional separation of church and state.

Hoping to allay fears about the role his religious beliefs would play were he elected, Kennedy agreed to address 300 clergymen attending the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960. In a speech that riveted the nation and quelled fears, Kennedy told his audience 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 a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote."

Having called out the bigots, Kennedy's subsequent ascension to the White House signaled a shift in the public's acceptance of Catholicism. For presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, however, public acceptance of his Mormon beliefs is still a long way off.

https://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=509