Religiosity viewed as a campaign asset

WASHINGTON — When John F. Kennedy addressed Protestant ministers in Houston during his 1960 presidential campaign, he sought to dispel criticism that his Catholicism would influence his performance in the White House.

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," Kennedy told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association at the old Rice Hotel in Texas.

More than four decades later, religion and politics emerge again as a theme in a presidential campaign, although in a far different way from when Kennedy felt the need to distance himself from his church.

President Bush, a Methodist who rediscovered his faith as an adult, speaks openly about religion and has been making aggressive pitches to not only evangelical Protestants but Catholics and Jewish voters.

His campaign recently sought the help of thousands of religious congregations in Pennsylvania to distribute campaign information and register voters.

Meanwhile, Democratic John Kerry, the first Catholic to run for president since Kennedy, has been scolded not for being too close to the Vatican but for failing to adhere to its teachings against abortion.

The Massachusetts senator has hired an evangelical Christian to reach out to religious groups and is being urged by some supporters to speak more openly about his faith.

The mixing of religion and politics has prompted criticism, including recent remarks by Ron Reagan, former President Ronald Reagan's son, that some politicians wear their religious beliefs on their sleeves for political advantage.

The comments were believed to be aimed at President Bush for trying to placate religious conservatives by opposing calls to expand stem-cell research.

Liberal Catholics and others were outraged when a number of American bishops chastised Kerry for taking communion even though he supports abortion-rights.

But, for the most part, embracing religion is viewed as more an asset than albatross in the 2004 campaign for a number of reasons.

Polls show voters today are comfortable with politicians publicly professing their religious beliefs as long as they are not exclusionary.

Experts say the increasing political activity of conservative evangelical groups and the defection of more observant Catholic voters from the Democratic Party has prompted the parties to pay more heed to churchgoers.

Luis Lugo, the director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said cultural wars of the 1960s provided a common bond among religious voters of a variety of faiths but that subjects such as abortion and gay marriage were not at issue in the Kennedy election.