JFK and the Politics of Religion

By Will Barber Taylor

Religion is a core part of who many people are. Our beliefs are often as intertwined with the way we act and how we act. As such, for a politician, the religious beliefs that are held can help to form policy and decide the outlook by which that person seeks to govern. This question has recently been raging in Scotland as the SNP attempted to choose their next First Minister. Kate Forbes, one of the most prominent candidates, had caused controversy because of her evangelical Christian views.

This article is, although inspired by such discourse, not about that. For Forbes approach — her decision to put her beliefs front and centre of her campaign and to then see them receive a stark backlash — is in contrast to how religion, and in particular the prejudice around his religion, was handled by John F Kennedy.

The way in which Kennedy’s faith was held against him by many of America’s most bigoted people is in some way surprising. Unlike Forbes, Kennedy was not upfront or found it necessary to make it part of his core campaign. He was far more interested in discussing substantive policy issues than trying to generate news through his beliefs. Indeed, it may be fair to say that unlike his younger brother Robert Kennedy, an altar boy whose faith became transformed into one of a deeper and more stoical nature by the murder of his elder brother, John F Kennedy was not a devout Catholic. He was not someone who attended church filled with zeal as to hear Catholic doctrine. And yet the faith of his family, the faith that he himself still felt to some extent was seen as an intense barrier to him becoming President — or so it seemed.

For the fascinating thing about Kennedy’s reaction to how his religion was perceived was to use what many felt was his greatest weakness into a strength. He used it to promote himself during the 1956 election campaign as a possible VP candidate, amassing comprehensive and detailed polling and statistical analysis to demonstrate that a Catholic on a ticket, rather than stopping the Democrats, could allow them to gain from Republicans. The main problem Kennedy faced was the spectre of Al Smith, the Democratic nominee for President in 1924 who had spectacularly failed to carry any state other than his home state of New York.

Smith’s Catholicism was widely perceived to be at the root of his failure to win the Presidency. Kennedy needed to ensure that the same conclusion was not arrived at by not only the heads of the Democratic Party but also the voters at large. Kennedy’s polling and voter analysis was thus crucial to promoting his political ambitions. The Bailey Report, primarily authored by Ted Sorenson one of Kennedy’s closest advisors, showed that because of the strong concentration of Catholics in 14 pivotal states, which held 261 votes in the Electoral College (five fewer than was then needed to win the Presidency outright) that Catholic voters were even more important that the 25% of the voting population that they seemed to represent. Sorenson further argued that the polling data showed that because of the concentration of Catholics in southern states, where Republicans were viewed poorly due to many Dixie Democrats hang ups following Reconstruction, even a Catholic Democrat would fare better than a protestant Republican.

Sorenson’s report thus showed that rather than hold back the overtly studious Adlai Stevenson, Kennedy could in fact help him across the finishing line. This was an important part of building Kennedy’s role in the Democratic Party and turning what was perceived as a disadvantage by many into a strong advantage. The candidate’s star power was obvious, but it was always tempered by worries about his religion, even with his extensive polling data that Kennedy hoped would allay concerns. As John Bailey, Chair of the Democratic National Committee would recount years later; “Nobody really thought Jack Kennedy was going to be nominated for Vice President… It was quite something to think of a Catholic even aspiring to run for Vice President.”

Whilst the 1956 nail biting fight for the Vice-Presidential spot may certainly have help dispel concerns for some within the Democratic Party that Kennedy’s religion was an obstacle to him reaching the highest office, convincing the public was another matter. Yet Kennedy was not afraid to take the issue head on because he realized that any attempt to shirk it or make it seem as if it bothered him discussing it would only help fuel speculation and rumour as to how important it was to him or the voters. Only by being upfront and directly tackling the bigotry he faced could Kennedy show his metal.

His opportunity to do as much came during the 1960 Presidential Campaign. For Kennedy faced a larger problem in 1960 when it came to religion than he had in 1956 — the general public. Kennedy’s religion had served as a bonus to the large Irish Catholic community in his home state (whilst there had been comments about his religion during the 1952 senate campaign it would not be anywhere near as pronounced as during the Presidential campaign). It was important, therefore, that Kennedy made clear from the beginning that his religion would be no bar to him becoming President. To do this he not only had to win in Protestant dominated states but he had to win significantly and as consecutively as the slightly odd Democratic Party primary system would then allow.

The Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries were therefore crucial for Kennedy. Both were largely protestant states, and it was important that he could prove that his religion was unimportant to voters and that his ideals and personality were far more attractive to them, regardless of religious creed. In these primaries he would not face his strongest opponent the man who ruled the United States Senate with an iron fist, Lydon B Johnson who had decided that the nomination should be his by rights and that it was pointless engaging in a campaign to win it. Instead, Kennedy faced Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey had one of the best records in the senate on civil rights and was a thoughtful politician if also deeply uncharismatic and frankly unappealing. Humphrey’s slogan of “Over the Hump with Humphrey” rather summed up his campaign — laborious, old fashioned and rather reminiscent of a nursery rhyme about an unfortunate egg (which was not helped by Humphrey’s uncanny similarity to Humpty Dumpty).

Humphrey knew he couldn’t outspend Kennedy and he certainly couldn’t out talk him so he relied on attempting to stir up protestant distrust of Catholics to his advantage. Humphrey’s use of bigoted stereotypes was not only out of character but clearly a last desperate attempt to win for a man who had run out of options and who was not at heart a bigot. Humphrey’s use of the song “Give Me That Old Time Religion” reinforced his attempt to distinguish himself from Kennedy on the basis of religion.

Kennedy’s response was characteristically brilliant in easily deflecting Humphrey’s attempts to bring religion into it whilst also hitting at a very sore point for his opponent; unlike Jack the war hero (admittedly admitted into the US Navy thanks to his father’s connections) Humphrey had failed to take part in the Second World War due to his own health.

Kennedy knew that to contrast the attack (that he was a Catholic) with his service record (Humphrey’s weakness) was a core part of the way he could not only nullify the issue of religion but also win the state.

He argued:

“Nobody asked me if I was a Catholic when I joined the United States Navy. Nobody asked my brother if he was a Catholic or Protestant before he climbed into an American bomber plane to fly his last mission.”

Kennedy further reinforced his belief in the separation of church and state by, with the help of pollster Lou Harris and the rest of the Kennedy team, recording an advert that was broadcast across West Virginia showing Kennedy placing his hand on the Bible and swearing his allegiance to the separation of church and state. These tactics helped to show that Kennedy saw himself as not confined by religion, that he was a politician who was above it which helped him to overcome the bigotry of association with the failed Al Smith and the bigotry of prejudice about what Catholics were like.

Even after he gained the nomination, Kennedy still faced a wave of prejudice because of his religion. Martin Luther King’s father, Martin Luther King Senior declared he would not vote for Kennedy on the basis of his faith; a position he changed after the Kennedy campaign helped to ensure Dr King’s release from an Alabama jail where he had been transferred by the racist state police.

But it would be amongst even more hard-line Protestant preachers that Kennedy would have to face his most belligerent and harshest religious critics. Invited to Texas to a meeting of the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Kennedy knew that such an event would draw wide coverage because of the vitriol expressed by many of those present towards him because of his religion and because of the association between his religion and “otherness”. Even prior to the McCarthyite witch hunts of only a few years before, American politics had so often been defined by what was considered American and what was considered to be un-American. In order to win the White House Kennedy needed to ensure that the otherness that many of the bigots who loathed him associated with his religion could not be extended to reflect his politics and suggest it was also somehow un-American.

Kennedy could not afford to become another Al Smith; 1960 truly was a make-or-break year not just for him but for his party as well and Kennedy could not bear to think bigotry about his religious upbrings should or could be the cause of it. Only days prior, there had been warnings that anti-Catholicism could cost Kennedy 1.5 million votes if he did not defeat his detractors in the court of public opinion. Therefore, despite calls from some members of his inner circle to not attend the meeting, Kennedy made the decision to take the bull by the horns and attend.

Kennedy’s address would become famous because of his command of language. He once remarked that Winston Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” The same can be said of Kennedy. The speech he would give and the questions he would face after it would be as much of a battle for the soul of America as it would be for the future of his campaign and so his words were his only truly consequential weapon against the onslaught of bigotry. Kennedy made his point clearly be stating:

“I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President, who also happens to be a Catholic.”

It is perhaps remarkable that, given the ferocity of the feeling in the room, the underlying hatred towards him, that Kennedy remained as cool and collected as ever. His speech was serious, statesman like but not pompous nor did he react defensively when asked bizarre questions about his relationship to Catholic doctrine or the Pope. The questions Kennedy faced were nonsensical and fell into parody of their intent, with some of them being especially long winded and focussed less on the concerns of ordinary Americans of the early 60s and more on some imagined conspiracy. Much like many Muslim and Christian politicians today, Kennedy faced an assumption that his childhood faith would govern his running of the country and it was key for him to be able to make that clear and distinctly separate the two.

That he was able to and managed to win over many Protestants is a testament to Kennedy’s abilities and the changing nature of American society at the start of the 1960s. Kennedy’s success in winning the Presidency meant that the view of Catholics in high office became much more favourable amongst the general public — as if often the case, once someone from a minority is elected to high office the prejudices against people from similar minorities holding high office become reduced, though sadly not fully eradicated.