Evening star., 1960-09-13

'eech to the Greater Houston
light:
ica where religious intolerance
will some day end-where all
men and all churches are
treated as equal-where every
man has the same right to at
tend or not attend the church
of his choice-where there il
no Catholic vote, no anti
Catholic vote. no bloc voting
of any kind-and where Cath
olics, ProtestantS and Jews, al
both the lay and pastoral level
will refrain from those atti-
tudes of disdain and division
which have so often marrec
their works in the past, ano
promote instead the American
ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of America
in which I believe-and it rep
resentS the kind of presidency
in which 1 believe-a great Of
flee that must neither be hum
bled by making it the instru'
ment of any one religious
group. nor tarnished by arbi-
trarily withholding its occu-
pancy from the members OF
any one religious group. 1 be-
lleve in a President whose re-
liglouS views are his own pri-
vate affair. neither imposed by
him upon the Nation or i'm
posed by the Nation upon him
as a condition to holding that
Office.
l would not look with favor
upon a President working tc
Subvert the First Amendment s
guarantees of religious liberty
Nor would our system of checks
and balances permit him to dc
so-and neither do I look with
favor upon those who woulc
work to subvert Article vi Of
the Constitution by requiring g
religious test-even by indirec-
tion-for it.
Responsible to All
l want a Chief Executive
whose public acts are reSpon.
sible to all groups and obligated
to none-who can attend any
ceremony. service or dinner hi!
Office may appropriately re-
quire of him-and whose full.
fillment of his presidential oatf
is not limited or conditioned
by any religious oath, ritual Oh
obligation.
This is the kind of America
l believe in-and this is the
kind l fought for in the South
Pacific, and the kind my
brother died for in Europe. NJ
one suggested then that We
might have a divided loyalty,
that we did mot believe ir
liberty or that we belonged tt
a disloyal group that threat.
ened the freedoms for which
our fOrefathers died"
And in fact this is the kline
of America for which our fore.
fathers died-When they fec
here to escape religious tes
oathS that denied Office tt
members of less favored
churches-when they Tough
for the Constitution. the Bill
of Rights. and the Virginii
Statute of Religious Freedom
and when they fought at thu
shrine I visited today, tn,
Alamo. For side-by-side will
Bowie and Crockett died Nc
Cafferty and Bailey and Care,
but no one knows whethe
they were Catholics or not. Fo
there was no religious test al
the Alamo.
Asked to Judge
l ask you tonight to follow il
that tradition-to judge me OF
the basis of my record of /
years in CongreSs-on my de
clared stands against an Am
bassador to the Vatican, agains
unconstitutional aid to paro
chial schools, and against an,
boycott of the public school
(Which I have attended my
self)-inStead of judging m
on the basis of these pamphlet
and publications we all hav
seen that carefully select quo
tations out of context from tn
statements of Catholic churcl
leaders, usually in other coun
tries, frequently in other cen
turies. and always omitting, @
course, the statement of tn
American bishops in 1948 whicl
strongly Endorsed church-stat
separation, and which NOR
nearly reflects the views @
almost every American Catholic
I do not consider these othe
quotations binding upon m
public acts-why should you
But let me say, with respect t
other countries, that I ar
| wholly onnoSed tn the stat