^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Joseph Kennedy earned his money running alcohol during prohibition. Is it any wonder this family was not accepted?
Would you be welcoming to a drug dealing family moving into your neighborhood?
Seems to me that the rejection or acceptance of the Kennedy family had little to do with religion.
I think you seriously underestimate the depth of anti-Catholic feeling in the US pre-1960, or the degree to which, in the pre-Vatican II world, Catholics in the US were seen and saw themselves as very distinct from the rest of the population. By then not any less loyal Americans (the old charge of dual loyalty had already lost much of its bite by the time Kennedy spoke to the Houston clergy), but with a separate education system and with distinctly different cultural values. I think that if you were able to carefully interview people, you would find that most Protestants born before 1930 for sure, and likely those born before WWII, grew up and remain suspicious of Catholics would have been almost as uncomfortable with their child marrying a Catholic as with the child marrying a jew. Don't get me wrong, I think such prejudice is wrong, but it was quite real.