The rule of law held, and Roman Catholics who had been excluded from our new republic, and its guarantees that one may believe or not as they choose, gave way to welcome Catholics, and persons of any other religious flavor, to the land that had made real the Enlightenment vision that government can be, and should be, run without approval from any religion or religious authority.

There still remained a fear that if a Catholic was elected President of the United States, the will of the church would be revealed to that Catholic President and that this President would then subordinate our Bill of Rights to the dogma of the church.

Until John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, ran for President of the United States.

Here is what Kennedy said to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960:

“But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured–perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again–not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me–but what kind of America I believe in.

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 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.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish–where no public official either requests or accepts 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.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew–or a Quaker–or a Unitarian- -or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim–but tomorrow it may be you–until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end–where all men and all churches are treated as equal–where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice–where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind–and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe–a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.”

(Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Politics/2000/09/I-Believe-In-An-America- Where-The-Separation-Of-Church-And-State-Is-Absolute.aspx#ixzz1oGc07Ex0)

So, then enter Presidential candidate Rick Santorum who says that Kennedy’s statement on church/state separation makes him want to vomit.

Clearly Rick Santorum is no Jack Kennedy.

Article VI of the Constitution of the United States says: “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

What part of “no” don’t they understand?

Why is someone who speaks treason even given audience by liberty loving Americans?

Let us say the view became popular and implemented that some god’s laws could completely trump laws made by sober people in serious contemplation of real consequences.

If one is a church, then that church gets to get away with a great multitude of things that would get those not so attached to a church thrown in jail for awhile.

It’s simple. Your churches make their own rules and the civil authorities stand powerless before them.

If your church rule says it is okay to have sex with children, well “that’s that” said the grammarian. Secular authority that wants to give everyone “equal protection of the laws” will not interfere. So long as We the People put up with this, black robed evil will continue.

And if the laws of god control, please fantasize a world where those who do not believe are seen as enemies of the state. How could atheists possibly be pleasing to god? Therefore, god must be angry because we permit that which annoys him.

How to fix this? Get rid of the atheists. Let the priests tell you what laws you should make, break, or follow.

Then the priests will not just have your children. They will have you and everything you own as well.

 

Remember, all of this monologue is only humor and satire.

 

Edwin Kagin.