Recently, President Obama weighed in on the “ground zero mosque” controversy. He stated the fact that there is no legal restriction to building any religious structure in that area. This is a fact which few people dispute. He later commented that he makes no judgment on the wisdom of building such a structure in that area. Now more Americans then ever fear that Obama is a Muslim.
A Pew Research poll conducted prior to the President’s statements showed that 11% of Americans mistakenly believe he is a Muslim. The poll conducted by Pew after the President’s remarks revealed that 18% believe the President is a Muslim and 43% aren’t sure what religion the President practices. A recent Time Magazine poll after the President’s remarks showed an even higher number finding that 24% of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. That is almost a fourth of the American people.
Evangelical Christian, Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham appeared on CNN Thursday night and claimed that the President was born Muslim citing the fact that Obama’s birth father was a Muslim. Interestingly enough, people are not actually born believing in any religion. Obama was raised Christian and has continued to go out of his way to profess his religiosity.
This whole conversation is ridiculous of course and what it does is to force the President to overcompensate the way closeted gay Republicans do when it comes to those issues. The hope is that by continually questioning Obama’s religion, the Religious Right can push him to support their theocratic agenda. It also serves to demonize their competition which really needs no help from them to do.
In more enlightened nations, boasts of religiousness are laughed at and not taken seriously. In fact, even the Bible warns against such behavior (Matthew 6:5) and yet fundamentalist Christians insist on making our politicians act like the Pharisees that are vilified in their own holy book.
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Comments
Well, considering around 50-60 percent of Americans don't accept the Theory of Evolution, this sort of ignorance is hardly surprising.
One thing... I believe Obama was raised as a secular humanist, not a Christian. He became Christian as an adult. Some people speculate that he began identifying as a Christian upon entering a career in politics (because we all know that non-theists have virtually no chance of being elected to office in this country). At any rate, he was never a Muslim.
Of course, the bigger issue is the fact that any of this actually matters in an industrialized democracy in the 21st century.
I wonder if it's the same quarter of the population that believes that Jesus is coming back in their lifetime?
good article.
I am proud of President Obama's support for religious freedom in the US.
Atheist, Muslim, Satanist, Christian, Communist, Freemason,... is there anything Obama hasn't yet been called?
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