Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 7, 1994                   TAG: 9407080027
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

1960 VS. 1994

To reach the presidency, Kennedy first had to surmount the political roadblock posed by his Catholicism. There would be a hot line, it was said, from the White House to the Vatican. The pope, it was said, would dictate administration policy.

Today, some people are equating contemporary criticisms of the religious right with the anti-Catholic attacks on Kennedy in 1960.

Some on the religious right have been victims of prejudice and snobbery, to be sure. Still, it's worth recalling how Kennedy met the attacks on him.

In a Sept. 12, 1960, speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Kennedy said: "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."

He believed in an America, Kennedy continued, "where no public official either requests or accepts instruction from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source - where no religious body seeks to impose its will upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials."

Such words may have had little effect on hard-core bigots. But they eased the reservations of many voters who worried about authoritarian religion and who now felt comfortable assessing Kennedy's candidacy without much or any reference to his Catholicism.

Two points stand out, both of which distinguish the Kennedy of 1960 from the religious right of 1994.

First, Kennedy's declaration of an "absolute" separation of church and state is as strong as any politician or court could - and stronger than many would - declare today.

Indeed, his statement goes too far, from our point of view. We think preachers have every right to tell politicians what to do and citizens how to vote - just as politicians and citizens have the right to ignore such advice if they wish. We note that many laws are formed from moral beliefs, many of which are religiously derived.

This is still different, however, from arguing - as some on the religious right do - that public funds should support religious education, or that America should be a Christian nation. Certainly, many activists show less respect than Kennedy did for church-state separation.

Second, the anti-Catholic attacks on Kennedy in 1960 focused on the fact of his Catholicism, not on any political stand he had taken. Indeed, from his political views, there'd be no way of telling that Kennedy was Catholic.

By contrast, the religious right seems to be defined by the cluster of views it promotes on public-policy issues ranging from abortion to subsidies for home schooling to fiscal and foreign policy. Wrapping such views in religious raiment makes them no less matters of public policy legitimately open to public criticism. And to engage in such criticism is not necessarily to indulge in anti-religion bias.