JFK on Separation of Church and State

[Jeannieb43]

I wonder why we can't have a president like this again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAvHHTt2czU

[Guest charis]

This bit of footage was so good I transcribed it. It's from the JFK Sept 12, 1960 speech in Houston at a ministerial convention:

Quote:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. Where no Catholic [power] would tell the President, should he be Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishi.oners on who 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 accepts or requests 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.