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> GLAAD Encourages Media to Contrast President Kennedy
Comments with President Bush, Vatican Directives
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July 31, 2003
Contact: Sean Lund, External Communications
Director
Phone: (323) 634-2008
Email: lund@glaad.org
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JFK on the Separation of Church and
State
JFK on Personal Religious Beliefs
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In the wake of today's Vatican directive for Catholic politicians to oppose equality and protections for same-sex families and yesterday's comments by President Bush on the same matter, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is urging media to more thoroughly examine the influence of such personal and institutional religious beliefs on public policy decisions. As a counterpoint to the rhetoric of the last two days, GLAAD is also recommending that media examine and discuss a key 1960 campaign speech by President John F. Kennedy that addresses the same issues.
One day after President Bush told reporters he seeks to "codify" the "sanctity of marriage," the Vatican today released a document directing politicians of the Catholic faith to halt and/or overturn legal and cultural acceptance of same-sex civil marriage, couples and families -- confronting the media and the American public with fundamental questions about the separation of church and state and the role religious advocacy should play in questions of civil rights.
During his bid for the presidency, candidate Kennedy offered a perspective that is particularly relevant to these questions. In an address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, 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...
"I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts 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...
"I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by nation upon him as a condition to holding that office."
Audio of the remarks transcribed above is available at http://www.glaad.org. Complete audio and a transcript of Kennedy's comments are available at the JFK Library and Museum's Web site.
?Listening to Kennedy?s comments makes it clear that his views regarding the influence of religious institutions and personal religious beliefs over public policy decisions differed sharply from those voiced this week by the Vatican and President Bush," said John Sonego, GLAAD's director of communications. "As media and all Americans engage in discourse about the civil rights of LGBT Americans, we hope the prescient message Kennedy delivered 43 years ago will help inform the shape and direction of that discussion today."
ARTICLES & RESOURCES:
GLAAD Resource Kit - July 2003
"Same-Sex Civil Marriage"
GLAAD Media Release - July 30, 2003
"GLAAD Calls on Media to Scrutinize President Bush's Misleading, Religion-Based Comments Against Same-Sex Civil Marriage"
Dignity/USA - July 31, 2003
Media Release: "Gay Catholics Reject Vatican Document on Same-Sex Marriage"
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum
"Address of Senator John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association," Rice Hotel, Houston, Texas - September 12, 1960
Vatican - July 31, 2003
"Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons" |
