Key Political Moments: JFK In Houston
Thursday September 18, 2008
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On 12 September 1960, then-Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gave one of the most important speeches of the campaign and of his career. He spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association about religion: the importance of the separation of church and state enumerated in the First Amendment ... his personal faith and how he, a Catholic, would govern.
Harnessing the power of the newest political communication tool, television, Kennedy spoke to assembled ministers but his audience was spread throughout Texas on a special 22-station network.
I don't know which is my favorite line. There are too many! But here goes:
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 parishoners 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.
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[C]ontrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic.
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But if the time should ever come -- and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible -- when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office...
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[I]f this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.
Key Political Speeches
- Lyndon B. Johnson - We Shall Overcome- 15 March 1965
- John F. Kennedy At The Greater Houston Ministerial Association - 12 September 1960
- President Eisenhower On The Military-Industrial Complex