Increasingly Confused Americans

Nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is a Muslim, according to Time magazine.

I wish I were joking, because this sounds like a joke, but sadly, I’m not.

Americans have always been “confused” about the President’s religious beliefs, but that percentage is up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009. Only 34 percent of people correctly said Obama is a Christian, and 43 percent replied that they didn’t know his religion, an increase from the 34 percent who said that in early 2009.

The survey was conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, and is based on interviews “conducted before the controversy over whether Muslims should be permitted to construct a mosque near the World Trade Center site,” according to Time.

The Pew poll found that about three in ten of Obama’s political opponents—Republicans and conservatives—claim he’s Muslim. Yet even among supporters, the number saying he is Christian has fallen since 2009, with just 43 percent of blacks and 46 percent of Democrats responding correctly.

Alan Fram writes in his Time article, “Pew analysts attribute the findings to attacks by his opponents and Obama’s limited attendance at religious services, particularly in contrast with Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, whose worship was more public.”

Firstly, why is praying publicly a “requirement” for presidents? That’s a question I can’t effectively address here.

But secondly, let me point out that the political opponents of Obama who believe he’s Muslim are, in fact, the real Islamophobes.

Those who think the Park51 community center is in an insensitive location (emphasis on location) are not the anti-Muslim Americans. Those who openly declare that our President is Muslim because a) they don’t approve of his policies, and therefore think he must be “one of them Muslims” or b) they want to attack him, diminish national support, and engender the conservative cause by claiming he practices a religion that carries negative associations—I repeat—are the real Islamophobes (or, the grossly uninformed and ignorant).

Using the President’s religion—even though Obama has made it perfectly clear that he is a Christian--as a political tactic is disgusting. Plus, it demonstrates that Christianity (certainly not Islam) is an appealing attribute in any president to many Americans. Here’s more proof that separation of church and state continues to be only a fallacy.

And just in case you’re one of the increasingly confused Americans, here is the correct information regarding Obama’s beliefs: Obama is the Christian son of a Kenyan Muslim and a Kansas-born mother. As a child, he spent four years in the predominantly Muslim Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather.

White House officials prompted Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston to call the Associated Press; Caldwell, who said he has known Obama for years, said the president is a Christian who prays every day. He called the false media reports surrounding Obama’s religion “a 24-hour noise box committed to presenting the president in a false light.”