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Mon Feb 27, 2012 8:00 PM EST
He attacked John F. Kennedy. Because if the record shows JFK was far from perfect in his personal morality, I question deeply - and, yes, passionately, Santorum's attack on his public role.
Kennedy was an out-and-out war hero who risked his life in the South Pacific. No president in history, no politician I can think of, showed such selfless courage in the way Kennedy did in saving his crew in the South Pacific.
Santorum ought to do a little study on the matter before making charges about who makes his "throw up."
Second, he ought to take a look at John F. Kennedy's record of public service in elective office.
He was the first president to stand up for civil rights, declaring it a "moral issue as old as the Scriptures, as clear as the American Constitution." He sent federal troops into Mississippi to integrate Ole Miss. He forced the door open at the University of Alabama past the resistance of Governor George Wallace. Today, the sister of that young woman he got into Alabama that day is married to the Attorney General of the United States.
Why do you think Kennedy was down there in Texas that November? He was trying to hold onto Texas and, maybe Georgia, because he knew his historic stand for civil rights was going to cost him the rest of the south.
Kennedy created the Peace Corps to send young people around the world to teach and in other ways help the poor. He created the Alliance for Progress to create a partnership with Latin America.
He saved the world from nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when American generals wanted to attack Cuba and Khrushchev was ready to fire those nuclear missiles at New York the second we did.
Santorum said that he wanted to "throw up" when he read Kennedy's speech declaring his commitment to keep church and state separate.
But is there something wrong with saying that no Catholic prelate should tell the president, should he be Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister should tell his people how to vote?
Perhaps before retching, Rick Santorum ought to consider that there are ways in which doing good might be possible without being sectarian, without dividing the country along lines of religious difference. Perhaps before retching he might have considered what Kennedy said in his inaugural address, that "here on earth God's work must truly be our own."
Religion and Politics
Sep 12, 1960
Senator John F. Kennedy addressed a special meeting of the Greater Houston Ministerial Association at the Rice Hotel in Houston, Texas. He spoke about the separation of church and state, the issue of having a Catholic as president, and the role that his religion had played up to that point in the 1960 presidential election. He responded to questions from members of the audience.
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