"I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish β 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 β where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials β and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew β or a Quaker β or a Unitarian β or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim- -but tomorrow it may be you β until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril."
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Presidents of the United StatesDemocratic Party (United States) politiciansMembers of the United States SenatePoliticians from BostonUnited States presidential candidates, 1960
Original Language: English
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy
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