Letting Santorum off easy?
Several readers responding to our editorial Wednesday on Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s “throw up” reaction to fellow Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech supporting church-state separation criticized The Times for being too soft on the former Pennsylvania senator.
Reader Richard C. Armendariz of Huntington Beach wrote:
“There is no way that you can soft-soap Santorum’s remarks that JFK’S speech regarding the separation of church and state made him want to throw up. To argue that Santorum was not completely at odds with the Kennedy statement smacks of an attempt to appease his supporters.
“Santorum’s statement on JFK — in addition to his prior ramblings that President Obama is a ‘snob’ because he wants everyone to go to college, that the president has a phony theology and his view that the free distribution of birth control will lead to increased promiscuity — is sufficient to conclude that Santorum is not fit for any elected office.” Times editorial writer Jon Healey responds:
The Times’ editorial board looked at Santorum’s comments about the Kennedy speech in isolation because they were emblematic of a more broadly held view among Christian conservatives. Whatever else you may think of Santorum, he is hardly the only person in America complaining that the government has pushed the notion of church-state separation too far.
It’s true that Santorum tried to draw a sharp contrast between his stance on religion in politics and Kennedy’s 1960 remarks. In the editorial board’s view, however, Santorum so misconstrued Kennedy’s speech that he missed the common ground the two men occupy.
Bear in mind that Kennedy gave the disputed speech to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston, not a gathering of atheists in San Francisco. He was trying to reassure people of faith that their religious liberties would not be diminished if a Catholic became president.
The Christian right talks about religious liberty in a different context today, asserting that Washington is aggressively anti-religion. But even if you think that the government is hostile to religious viewpoints, that’s not what Kennedy advocated in Houston. As The Times’ editorial writers noted, Kennedy’s strong stance against the president taking marching orders from the pope, and Santorum’s argument that Washington shouldn’t exclude religious viewpoints from the debate, are opposite sides of the same coin.