Who thinks Obama's a Muslim?

How was that Sun-Chronicle article NOT reprinted from the Onion? One of those idiots teaches at Harvard? What???? How the hell does a physicist consider atheism "un-American?"

"Coming from an international background, there is no mistake that he leans into the Muslim faith," Chipman said, explaining that he bases his belief on news reports.

Robert Delle of Westboro, another Republican running in the 3rd District against U.S. Rep. James McGovern, D-Worcester, also said he believes Obama is a Muslim.

"There is no doubt about it. Obama is a Muslim," he said.

Coming from an international background? What the hell does that even *mean*? If Obama's dad was Italian, would he think Obama's a Muslim too? What about Lebanon? Muslim, right? Newsflash: 39% of Lebanon are Christians that's more than either the Shia Muslims (28%) or Sunni Muslims (28%) in the country! (Pop quiz, asshole: is Bin Laden Sunni or Shia? What about Obama's dad? Obama? Which one is a threat to the U.S.?).

That last question's a trick. The answer is neither.

Also, as far as Obama being an atheist...one could only wish. Imagine someone leading this country purely from a humanitarian standpoint and making decisions without having to "pray on it" or "consult with their faith leader".

Stopa, a Harvard University physicist, said he has no proof for his claim, but says Obama has the radical anti-American views of an atheist.

As an atheist, I say: Eat shit, Dr. Stopa. Your attitude towards atheists is far more anti-American than anything Obama has said or done in his political career.

they should just put "Brought to you by Fox News" on their websites, since that seems to be where their political philosophy comes from.

Muslim... http://huff.to/cnLC3t

What would MLK Say?

The rightwingers in Manhattan yesterday were attempting to assert that the site of the destroyed World Trade Center is Christian or perhaps ‘Judeo-Christian,’ and that those traditions have a special prerogative in that area. In contrast, they identify Islam with the attackers (even though Usama Bin Laden openly said of the hijackers that ‘those young men had no fiqh [Islamic law]‘– i.e. they were lawless secret operatives rather than proper Muslims.) Al-Qaeda is a vicious cult, as little connected to mainstream Islam as Timothy McVeigh was to Christianity.

The demonstrators want to get around the Constitution by creating a sacred geography of sentiment that is outside ordinary legal reality. It consists of a space of white American Judeo-Christian victimhood and of another realm, of a brown, foreign, hostile Islam that must be excluded from lower Manhattan (never mind that these characterizations of American Muslims are pure falsehood). It is an attempt to create a space within which one religious tradition is favored over another, and an attempt to deny members of a religion the opportunity to practice it wherever they like. They grant the technical ‘right’ to the Muslims to worship there, but then seek to withdraw that right on the ground of hurt feelings or inappropriate geography. We saw this sort of thinking in the Jim Crow era, when African Americans, though full American citizens, were prevented from living, shopping, working, and inevitably from worshiping, in certain geographical areas, on the grounds that their doing so would offend and hurt the feelings of the White majority.

http://ping.fm/QpKNQ

Feel free to tell these guys (or their PR lackeys) what you think about their asinine opinions:

* Mike Stopa on Twitter
* Bob Chipman's email address
* Bob Delle's email address

I understand the indignation against expressions of ignorance. It makes me indignant as well.
Let us not, however, allow our own ignorance to lead us into saying foolish things against millions of our countrymen.

I'm going to show why I don't find it hard to believe that many people suspect that Obama is a Muslim. The following facts, to best of my knowledge, are universally accepted:

1. As has been widely reported countless times, such as here in the NY Times, Obama was born to Muslim father, and is therefore considered Muslim by default by any conventional understanding of Muslim law. Having officially left Islam, he would be considered an apostate, punishable legally by death in a number of Muslim countries.

2. Obama attended a madrassa for a couple of years at least as a kid in Indonesia, which is a muslim religious school. His step-father was also a Muslim, as is his half-sister, all explained in his own auto-biography. He refers to his own "muslim roots" frequently.

3. Obama has not been widely reported to be involved in any organized religion during his later childhood and early adulthood in the U.S.

4. With his wife, Obama joined Reverand Wright's church in Chicago when he moved there, which he attended for 20-plus years. Some of that church's more vivid expressions of anti-american sentiment led Obama to distance himself from Wright during his presidential campaign.

5. Obama has never offered the sort of public expression of feeling and faith related to his departure from Islam, the religion of his family and childhood, nor to his adoption of Christianity, the religion of his adulthood. Rightly or wrongly, some people want such an explanation in order to believe he converted.

In my book, if Obama says he's a Christian, then he's a Christian. If he is not a Christian at heart, I would find it much more likely that he holds typical secular beliefs than secret Muslim beliefs anyway.

However, given the facts at hand, is it so terribly surprising that many Americans would suspect otherwise? I don't agree with Republicans or anyone else cynically manipulating voters into believing that Obama is a Muslim when they don't themselves believe it. But I also don't agree that any cynical manipulation is necessary to explain what looks like a fairly sensible inference on the parts of many.

NY Magazine argues here that making this sort of argument, in effect blaming Obama for the confusion about his religion, is wrong or ignorant. I don't agree with the thrust of this article, but I appreciate that the writer at least engaged with the thought process of people he regards as his political opponents. That's a breath of fresh air.

Delle said he would not object to Obama being a Muslim if he was honest and upfront about it.

Really, how much fairer could he be?

These freakin' people are scary.

Let's assume Obama's a Muslim. He's not, but let's assume for the sake of argument that these guys have pegged him on his innermost secrets.

So what?

Only Delle says something to the effect of "I'm okay with him being a Muslim, it's lying about being a Christian that I am against". One says that he's a Muslim, therefore what? They didn't ask him what implication that would have.

Meanwhile, Mr. Anti-Atheist, Michael Stopa, says that Obama is "sympathetic to anyone opposed to America and American values". He called the president a traitor. In specious terms and with "no proof", he claims that Obama is guilty of treason, a U.S. Constitutionally-defined offense. Unbelievable.

Sholley also hangs out on that same limb. Obama = Marxist, Marxist = Atheist, Q.E.D. Obama = Atheist. Again, so what? Of course, housing the comment with the same old "no proof" and "I'll take him at his word though" crap.

I really wish the journalist pulling these quotes had asked the most obvious followup question: "So assuming you are correct, what implication does that have on his ability to be President?".

People who cater to the most depraved attempts at discrediting the President for something (being a Muslim) that is NOT EVEN OFFENSIVE, by pretending that it is both true and a political issue, should be contemptuously exposed by the rest of us due to their deliberately mendacious commentary.