Posted on 02/26/2012 11:51:04 AM PST by SeekAndFind
GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said today that watching John F. Kennedy’s speech to the Baptist ministers in Houston in 1960 made him want to “throw up.” “To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum said.
“That makes me throw up and it should make every American who is seen from the president, someone who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can’t come to the public square and argue against it, but now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square,” he said.
Santorum also said he does not believe in an America where the separation of church and state is “absolute.” “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country,” said Santorum. “This is the First Amendment. The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion. That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Religion was mankind's first crack at philosophy, so you're probably never going to untangle religion from morality.
But which laws should be codified into civic law? The Bible tells me I have to get circumcised too. Should the state mandate that?
Perhaps because that is what he said. How do you read the "separation of church and state must be absolute" any other way?
Whoever is advising Santorum really is drunk behind the wheel.
I've never liked Santorum because of his lockstep votes for the Bush agenda, but he's making it REALLY difficult to like him with his inability to keep from getting sidetracked on what should be personal issues. The GOP candidates had a chance to really knock the Obama admin for infringing on religious liberty, but they let the media sway the debate to one of birth control legality and church/state separation issues.
That's what elections are about, whose morality is codified in law. Separating morality or the religious beliefs/non-beliefs of any legislator from the laws they promote is mythological nonsense.
So you're saying that JFK was saying that he (as a man of faith) shouldn't be elected.
That makes absolutely no sense at all. None. Zip. Zero.
What I’m saying is that JFK threw his religion, in fact all religion, under the bus hewing to the then liberal line that religion had no place in the public square. Hell he threw America under the bus when he removed missiles from germany after Kruschev threatened him with missiles in Cuba. He threw his wife and kids under the bus by shtupping the interns. He even threw the intern under the bus by pimping her out to his buddies at State. Black folk and civil rights? Under the bus.
I mean the guy was famous for this crap.
Or to go even further, if the feds wanted to mandate all males be circumcised, they could? Any dictate from the Bible could be argued as a 'moral issue.'
Very funny. Are you Billy Crystal?
Anyways, JFK was an objectionable person, but I find nothing objectionable in that speech.
Would you rather he had said that he WAS going to take orders from the Vatican?
Religious people need to understand that if they want to pass laws that affect ALL of us, they need to provide not only a Constitutional justification, but also an argument that goes beyond "well, my religion tells me so."
And you need to understand that all laws are based on somebodys morality and no legislator in any government body has to explain his votes in religious or irreligious terms.
You also need to learn that religious folks have the same rights as irreligious folks to assemble in the public square and have their voices heard.
Under Kennedy’s speechifying this would be disallowed and it came to fruition in Roe with Blackmun bs’ing about the “separation of church and state” which is an extra constitutional law made by old people in black dresses perverting a letter written by Jefferson to a Baptist minister assuring him that government would not interfere in the affairs of his church.
The “free exercise” clause means what it says as does the “establishment clause”. That is what Santorum believes and what Kennedy tried to pervert to get elected. Screw him.
And yes I meant Turkey and wrote Germany vis a vis the missiles. He threw Germany under the bus by allowing the Berlin Wall to be built. Two thoughts scrambled in an old mind. JFK, the myth.
Black, a former KKK member, was very anti-Catholic and so in his opinion he encorporated much of the language of the “Blaine Amendment”, a constitutional amendment proposed by the politician James G. Blaine, that would deny to the states the right to fund church schools. This hit most specifically at Catholic schools since the protestant faith was taught in the public schools. The amendment was never ratified, but now Black decides to reinterpret the First Amendment as if that amendment were part of the Constitution. Amendment of the Constitution by judicial fiat.
What does this have to do with Santorum? Well, it led to the later Court decision to secularize the public schools, such as the decision to ban prayer from the schools, and going beyond that supporting the efforts of secularist groups to remove all religious symbols from public property. Furthermore, it now extends to public speech. Any opinion about public matters by religious persons based on their religious principles is now treated as "Irrational.” Thus if you are a politician who openly proclaims your faith, you are though to be a bit “balmy,” if not crazy. It goes beyond that. One may be an atheist and see that gay marriage makes no sense. Still he will be accused of “prejudice.” How DARE he base his opinion on facts in evidence?
Why do you keep obsessing about birth control? Santorum is talking about the free exercise of religion, which includes the right of religious institutions to hold to the doctrines they proclaim. Obama is simply trying to nationalize the Catholic hospitals that now provide one-fourth of the medical care in the USA. He defines medical care to include contraceptives and abortions. Obamacare gives him the authority to do this. He could tomorrow order all hospitals to perform later-term abortions,. and maybe infanticide. And despite all the denials about “death panels,” he could institutionalize euthanasia for the deformed, the sick and the elderly. Oh, he wouldn’t dare, right now. But he arguably has the power.
It went overboard to some extent, but there also is/was a matter for legitimate concern. I don't think anyone here would dispute that a President's morality is going to affect how he governs. And the fact is that, according to the Catholic Church doctrine of papal infallibility, the Pope's word on matters of faith and morals cannot be wrong. That raises a legitimate question about the extent to which an avowedly Catholic President will let papal pronouncements determine his position on moral issues.
It's certainly an awkward situation, but Catholic doctrine does made it, unfortunately, a relevant area of inquiry.
The Danbury Baptists wrote Jefferson because they were afraid of being discriminated against or otherwise marginalized because they were a religious minority. They were afraid that other religions or religious organizations (mostly the Congregationalists) would use the state to oppress them, and told Jefferson that they believed religion was something that was at all times, between individuals and their God. Jefferson wrote back and agreed, and he would agree with what JFK said as well.
The right answer should have been, and always will be, "Preventative birth control is none of the state's business, nor should the state ever mandate that someone else pay for it other than the person who wants it."
But today, all that demand “separation of church and state” do so to remove Christ.
Ask your brother if we were a theocracy in 1787, when the Constituion was written. Back then most states had State Churches. Ask him if we were a theocracy in 1950, when there was prayer in schools. And ask him how atheism is not a theological position, and therefor a state religion.
Murder’s criminality is strictly an Old Testament law. Since anything in the Bible such as the 10 commandments is not allowed to influence any US law, when will murder be legalized so we are not influenced by any religion? Incest? Extortion? Fraud? Adultery? Homosexuality? Illegal drugs? Treason? They all are outlawed in Scripture.
If our criterion for removing any criminal behavior from legislation is based upon it being forbidden in Scripture, there is a long list of illegal activity which will now be decriminalized.
OK, then — callous, sordid, pathetic, and unforgivable.
I didn’t mean to dispute anything you said. I just find it amusing to read that Kennedy “gave up” his religion. There wasn’t much for that pathetic CINO to give up in the first place.
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