A letter from Pete Stark (D-Eternal Damnation):

Ellen Goodman reflects on the, well, stark contrast between the sixties' secular politics and today's religified variety:

How did the matter of someone’s religion get back into the dead center of the public square, not to mention the cable shows and the blogosphere?

The first Romney came to political prominence after the postwar growth of ecumenical suburbs and after Jack Kennedy’s famous speech: “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 Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote.”

“I do not speak for my church on public matters—and the church does not speak for me,” said Kennedy. JFK’s pivotal speech and his election seemed to take religion off the public table.

Fast forward to the rise of the Moral Majority. In 1976 Jerry Falwell offered his very un-JFK opinion: “The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the devil to keep Christians from running their own country.”