Well, yes. The Baptist ministers were worried that if elected President, JFK would be a puppet of the Pope, since their view was that Catholics have to do whatever the Pope tells them, no matter what.
So Kennedy said, “separation of Church and State,” which is NOT the same things as “there shall be no ESTABLISHMENT of religion.” Meaning, no official national religion, as there was in England at that time. Kennedy kept his word, and governed like a liberal atheist.
Now, the situation is entirely different. Most Evangelicals realize that the dire threat today is not the Pope, but the Communist big government dictators who want to destroy Christianity, root and branch, Catholic and Protestant.
Catholics and Evangelicals can work together against that threat, while still disagreeing about other issues.
Incidentally, Gingrich is now a Catholic, too.
Well, yes. The Baptist ministers were worried that if elected President, JFK would be a puppet of the Pope, since their view was that Catholics have to do whatever the Pope tells them, no matter what.
For the Southern baptists the key worry was that JFK would follow the Popes teachings on segregation (my understanding was that "Jim Crow" had been declared abhorrent), this speech was JFK assuring the Southern clergy that segregation would not be interfered with by the federal government if he was elected.
The removal of the historical context of this speech is part of the popular press and much of the left leaning academia whitewashing of the history of the Democrat party.