A new poll out Thursday from the Pew Research Center shows nearly one in five Americans believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim.
From the link:
A new national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama's religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama's recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center.
To re-emphasize, this survey was completed before Obama announced his support for the mosque to be built at Ground Zero where reports say the landing gear from Muhammad Atta’s plane crashed through the roof of the building directly on the proposed mosque site.
In a Time magazine poll conducted after the announcement, the number rises to nearly one in four.
In a separate poll by Time magazine/ABT SRBI conducted Monday and Tuesday - after Obama's comments about the mosque - 24 percent said they think he is Muslim, 47 percent said they think he is Christian and 24 percent didn't know or didn't respond. See: "TIME Poll: Majority Opposes Mosque, Many Distrust Muslims."
The Obama apologists were out in force blaming talk radio, and more specifically Rush Limbaugh, for causing people to believe our president is a Muslim.
This March 3, 2007, New York Times piece offers great insight into the issue.
In foreign policy as well, Mr. Obama would bring to the White House an important experience that most other candidates lack: he has actually lived abroad. He spent four years as a child in Indonesia and attended schools in the Indonesian language, which he still speaks.
“I was a little Jakarta street kid,” he said in a wide-ranging interview in his office (excerpts are on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground). He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics - and more likely to be aware of their nationalism - if he once studied the Koran with them.
Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”
More at the link.
Ducking Christian events - like the National Day of Prayer - while speaking out about his Muslim heritage doesn’t help matters.
The President should be looking in the mirror if he’s seeking answers regarding misconceptions about his religion. Perhaps if Obama offered a modicum of outreach to Christians there wouldn’t be so much confusion surrounding his faith.
