John F. Kennedy defended the separation of church and state, and opposed using taxpayer money to fund private religious schools. 

Born a hundred years ago, May 29, 1917, John F. Kennedy served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. 

On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  Yet however short his term in office, Kennedy leaves behind a powerful legacy that reaffirms the secular values upon which this nation was founded. 

As a presidential candidate, Kennedy gave a major speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on the issue of his religion.  At the time, many Americans questioned whether Kennedy’s Roman Catholic faith would allow him to make decisions as president independent of the church.  Kennedy addressed those concerns by reaffirming his commitment to the U.S. Constitution, and the separation of church and state. 

The following is an excerpt of Kennedy’s historical address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, delivered September 12, 1960, at the Rice Hotel in Houston, Texas:

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; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.  I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. 

In his address Kennedy clearly and boldly affirms the separation of church and state as a cornerstone of life in America. 

However, in the 21st century, many conservative Christians reject the separation of church and state, and are currently engaged in a long term struggle to remake the United States into a Christian theocracy. 

Yet despite the Christian extremists who would deny the separation of church and state, there can be no doubt that the sentiment and meaning behind the phrase is contained within the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

The actual phrase “separation of church and state” is derived from a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to Baptists from Danbury, Connecticut, and published in a Massachusetts newspaper soon thereafter.  In that letter, referencing the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. 

Yet despite the long and great tradition of keeping church and state separate, currently the Trump administration is complicit in a plot to remake the United States into a Christian theocracy. 

In fact, there is no better example of the dangers the U.S. is currently facing from Christian extremists then Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. 

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a radical Christian extremist who wants to use American schools to “advance God’s kingdom.” 

Making good on her promise to use American schools to “advance God’s kingdom,” the new education budget from Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would drastically cut public education while funneling hundreds of millions of tax dollars into private religious schools. 

One can only imagine the outrage that Kennedy and other great Americans who fought and died to preserve the secular values of this nation would feel at the prospect of Betsy DeVos and other Christian extremists trying to bring theocracy to the U.S.A.

Bottom line: John F. Kennedy defended the separation of church and state, and opposed using taxpayer money to fund private religious schools.