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In reply to the discussion: Santorum says he ‘almost threw up’ after reading JFK speech on separation of church and state [View all]markpkessinger
(8,392 posts)I was born a few months after Kennedy's inauguration. I learned about Kennedy's speech while in high school in the 1970s. At the time, the concerns of the protestant clergy whom Kennedy was addressing -- indeed, the fact that Kennedy even had to make the speech -- was seen as evidence of a widespread, and unfair, anti-Catholic bias. 51 years after Kennedy's inauguration, we have a contender for the nomination of a major party who is a Catholic and expresses open disdain for the notion of separation of church and state, one of the founding values of this country. Taken together with the recent actions by Roman Catholic bishops to assert their influence over public policy with respect to contraception, the concerns of those protestant clergy a half century ago appear to have been not entirely unfounded.