To all my Christian friends, Merry Christmas. =============================== To all, a reminder of an American ideal in the unifying words of JFK: While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face : those who no longer respect our power--the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms--an America with too many slums, with too few schools . These are the real issues . And they are not religious issues--for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers. I believe in an America where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference . Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end--where all men and all churches are treated as equal--where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice--where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind--and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood. This is the kind of America I believe in--and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died." I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition . The statement of the American Bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic. Adapted from JFK's September 12, 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association =============================================================== In a message dated 12/21/2007 8:35:32 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: To All My Democrat Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or express, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender- neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion
