Senator Kennedy responded directly to the challenge in a formal address to Protestant clergymen in Houston, endorsing “an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be a 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…” Kennedy’s Houston speech effectively drove the religious issue underground for the remainder of the campaign, where it joined the equally explosive issue of civil
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