Drifting from church-state standards

To the editor:

On Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John Kennedy spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association about the issue of a candidate's religion. Part of his comments were as follows:

"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 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 -- 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 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 -- and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."

It seems that we are drifting further and further from these standards, and it is a very sad state of affairs.

HARLAN E. FIEHLER, Cape Girardeau