By Zachary Bailes
Doctors are on stand-by for Rick Santorum, the Republican front-runner. They are trying to understand how the First Amendment could induce vomiting.
The cause for concern stems from his appearance on ABC’s This Week where he discussed the role of religion and government. Referring to President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Santorum said the speech made him want to “throw up.”
Thus far the doctors have ruled out plague, influenza and food poisoning. No other causes seem to exist for this sudden urge to vomit.
While I hold no medical degree, I suggest they check to see if he needs glasses. The cause for this unfortunate urge to upchuck may be nothing more than gross misreading of a fellow Catholic and the Constitution. Let’s investigate.
Santorum said: “Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, ‘No, faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate.’ Go on and read the speech ‘I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith.’ It was an absolutist doctrine that was foreign at the time of 1960.”
I, too, might feel queasy if what Santorum said actually occurred. Not only did Kennedy’s speech not say, “I will have nothing to do with faith,” it also did not call for the elimination of faith (or religion) from the public square.
John F. Kennedy imagined a United States that did not vote upon people according to religious identity. He said: “Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end … where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind, and where Catholics, Protestants, and Jews… will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.”
If Santorum were to read that portion, it might provide some Pepto Bismol for his upset ideological stomach.
Perhaps he has not heard of Gov. Al Smith. Smith, the 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, faced vehement opposition because he was Catholic. In fact, he was the first Catholic presidential nominee of a major political party. Alabama Sen. Thomas Heflin delivered a 1928 speech on the Senate floor warning that Catholics backing Smith’s campaign “will lay the heavy hand of a Catholic state upon you and crush the life out of Protestantism in America.”
Heflin’s words, not Kennedy’s, make me want to hurl. Not only out of ideological disagreement, but the level of hate and vitriol directed at a group of people because of their religious belief. Kennedy stood against that. He worked to educate people on his religious beliefs and helped dissolve the widely held belief that “Catholic” meant “anti-American.”
Santorum is welcome to disagree with religious liberty, but he does so absent-mindedly. Religious liberty allowed for Kennedy to eventually become president, and it now allows for Santorum to run for president. Religious liberty does not eliminate faith, but allows faith to flourish.
Kennedy did not seek to eliminate faith from the public square. He, and others, worked to prevent faith from being excluded from the public square, while standing against creating a religious establishment. Faith and politics in America cannot be separated — that is why the First Amendment protects free exercise and limits government mingling with religion.
Santorum wants to vomit because he cannot stomach the flavorful, yet democratically nutritious, nourishment called “religious liberty.”