Tim Rutten: Old-Time Religion, Today's Politics

Tim Rutten is a columnist for the LA Times.

In the midst of a hotly contested presidential election a little more than half a century ago, John Kennedy went to Houston to give the most important speech of his campaign.

"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; 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 a president whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office."

If, as seems increasingly likely, Texas Gov. Rick Perry jumps into the current race for the Republican presidential nomination, Houston also will be the scene of a campaign event that demonstrates just how far we've descended from that day Kennedy spoke, and what the consequences of that descent are. Perry has summoned the country's governors to join him on Aug. 6 in a national day of prayer and fasting sponsored by a fundamentalist, evangelical Protestant ministry. Perry, who urges participants to bring a Bible, acknowledges that the event, which is called The Response, is an overtly Christian occasion, and on its website, he writes that America's hope "lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees."...