One Out of Six Americans Believe Obama Is a Muslim

In 2008, a poll regarding the public’s view of then candidate Obama’s religious beliefs, found that 1 out of 10 people believed him to be a Muslim – despite him stating the contrary. This perception came about, in large part, due to an Islamophobic Network that has been exposed by numerous independent journalists and research teams. These people and organizations used everything “Muslim” about Obama to “discredit” him (because “Muslim” is currently a political slur) in the minds of American voters, both Right and Left (but mostly Right). They said his name Barack Hussein Obama was proof that he was a devout Muslim; as well as the fact that he spent four years of his childhood in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. Some simple-minded bigots even suggested that Obama “has” to be a Muslim regardless if his personal religious beliefs are aligned with Christianity, because according to “Islamic law” a son of a Muslim remains within the fold regardless if his beliefs match another religion. Obama’s father was an Atheist.

To “solve” the problem, Obama’s Indonesian step-father Lolo Soetoro was then used as proof of his Muslim identity. Since Soetoro was a Muslim, so goes the argument, Obama became an “adopted” Muslim son which means he will remain within the fold for the rest of his life. Soetoro, in Obama’s own words in Dreams From My Father, practiced a syncretic universalist form of Islam prevalent in Indonesian culture, wherein Hindu and other pre-Islamic Indonesian beliefs were melded in with Islamic teachings; and even spoke highly of the Hindu god Hanuman, the same deity that former Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams apologized to Hindus for, when he declared that Muslims worship a “monkey god.”

“Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths.”

I’am not in the habit of declaring who is Muslim or not, but clearly this position is not really in-line with mainstream Muslim teaching, and takes one out of the fold of Islam according to the type of Muslims these conspiracy theorists fear. There is also the pointed fact that classical Islam does not really recognize “adoption” in the Western sense, but rather recognizes “Fostering” children. So either way you depict it, Obama is not a Muslim by “inheritance”; not that it would  be wrong if he were a Muslim!

On May 10, 2012, four years later, the Huffington Post released the findings of a new poll which found that 1 out of 6 Americans now believe President Obama is a Muslim.

“After nearly four years in the Oval Office, President Obama is incorrectly thought to be Muslim by one in six American voters, and only one quarter of voters can correctly identify him as a Protestant, according to a new poll.”

“While Americans across the board get the president’s religion wrong, the religious group that most often thinks Obama is Muslim is white evangelical Protestants (24 percent). American unaffiliated with a religious group make the error least often: just 7 percent identify Obama as Muslim.” (Emphasis added)

What I find most disturbing about this article, is that Islamophobia is downplayed as an important factor in the public’s perception. Even the executive director of the American Islamic Congress, Zainab Al-Suwaij thinks it is primarily just a “…lack of information than an attack on him,…” If only this were the case. The belief that President Obama is a Muslim is directly followed with demonization of his character. The two claims are inextricably linked in the minds of those who subscribe to this fantasy.

Research director of Public Religion Research Institute, Daniel Cox, also displays befuddlement at the poll data, and suggests that it is because Obama doesn’t “wear his religion on his sleeve” that 16% of Americans believe he is a Muslim.

“Quite frankly, I’m not really sure what to make of it other than this person, although he speaks quite comfortably about his faith, doesn’t wear his religion on his sleeve,…”

“It’s an important part of who he is, but it’s not an important part of his public persona.”

While this may contribute a little confusion among 16% of Americans who believe the President is a Muslim, I think Mr. Cox is ignoring the Islamophobic “elephant in the living room” (there is an Islamic pun there for those who search for it.) As mentioned earlier, there is an entire Islamophobia Industry that ceaselessly turns out blogs, books, public speakers and street thugs to depict all Muslims as evildoers who want to destroy the “Western” way of life, and replace it with an Islamic caliphate or theocracy. Moreover, many of the people who promote these conspiracy theories are religious fanatics themselves, and advocate the very things that they decry Muslims for. Rick Santorum, a prominent Muslim-basher and Birther, for example, will slip in a comment about how American law should reflect “God’s law” as enshrined in the Bible, in the midst of his anti-Muslim diatribe. He also won’t correct his supporters who claim that Obama is a Muslim to his face.

This is more than just a misunderstanding among the majority of the 16% of Americans who believe the President is a Muslim. The “white evangelical Protestant” churches have by and large become hotbeds of right-wing political ideology, and indulgers of wacky conspiracy theories, such as the “Pink Swastika.” This “theory” states that the Nazis, and fascism itself, is the culmination of a culture of “masculine homosexuality.” The more the West “tolerates” homosexuals, at the bidding of the Left, the closer we get to a totalitarian political order whereby the “true believers” will be persecuted for “telling the truth”, which also ties into their opposition to hate-crime legislation. Could this be a possible link to the ramblings of Bradlee Dean of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, that Keith Ellison was trying to implement Sharia law through a “homosexual agenda”?

“They are using the homosexuals as a political battering ram to bring forth what? Sharee [sic] law.”

These are the shared sources of the majority of people who believe the President is a Muslim. It’s not just an innocent misunderstanding as some would have us believe, but part of a well-worn and deliberate effort to attach the slur of “Mooslim” to gain political traction. Obama is the most prominent recipient of this jingoistic bigotry, but for as long as the fanatical anti-Muslim movement in the US exists there will be many more who will receive this treatment.

Nutjob Robert Spencer Suggests Barack Obama is an “Islamist Jihadist” with a “remarkable, unqualified and obvious affinity for Islam” who believes that 911 was “an act of God”

Robert Spencer

Terrorist inspirer Robert Spencer’s proclivity to engage in anti-Muslim Islamophobic conspiracy theories is well known. Recently, he dallied once again in the nutty conspiracy that Barack Obama is a ‘radical undercover Mooslim’ hell bent on destroying America.

In a post titled, Obama reads Biblical passage at 9/11 ceremonies implying that 9/11 was an act of God Spencer writes,

Obama reads Psalm 46, including verse 8: “Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has wrought desolations in the earth.”

The only people who think that 9/11 was an act of the Supreme Being wreaking desolations on the earth are…Islamic jihadists.

Robert Spencer, just like his comrade Pamela Geller believes Obama is a Muslim. They have repeated this claim numerous times, both implicitly and directly, though Spencer has reverted again to not saying it clearly.

Spencer, unlike his friend Geller knows that such a belief is bats*** loony so he attempts to couch his language in euphemism and hints.

It is interesting to note Spencer’s false claim that the “only people who think that 9/11 was an act of the Supreme Being are Islamic jihadists.” Spencer isn’t that stupid, just a week ago he was on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, the same loon pastor who “in the wake of 9/11, had a now (in-)famous exchange with the late Jerry Falwell in which the two religious leaders suggested that the United States ‘deserved’ the attacks for its tolerance of secularism, gays, abortion, feminists and pagans.”

Maybe Spencer thinks that Robertson is an Islamic Jihadist?

However, when have facts ever stopped Spencer in the past? So, with single-minded drive to prove Obama’s radical Islamic Jihadism he continues:

So why did Barack Obama pick this psalm out of 150 psalms, and out of innumerable appropriate Biblical passages, to read at the 9/11 ceremonies? 9/11, after all, was a day when there were indeed wrought desolations on the earth. Did Obama really mean to say that God did it, that it was an act of divine judgment, rather than a monstrous and unmitigated evil?

Or is this just another one of those funny coincidences, of which there are so very, very many when it comes to Barack Obama and his remarkable, unqualified and obvious affinity for Islam?

Robert Spencer long ago went off the rails when he solidified his alliance with Pamela Geller and the fascist anti-Muslim Right-wing network. Ever since then it has been downhill for the anti-Muslim polemicist. No longer does he care to present the facade of impartiality, scholarliness or truth. He has been savaged for it in the mainstream media, it only remains for the national security complex, which still allows him to instruct its employees to catch up to this soon to be bygone “counter-jihad” blogger.

Wallowing in his own self-righteousness, Spencer declares the President of the United States Barack Obama, a professed Christian, the commander-in-chief of forces occupying two Muslim nations and bombing the hell out of several more of being an “Islamist Jihadist.”

Is that called “chutzpah” or just plain right-wing anti-Muslim loonacy?

Joe Kaufman O-Meter #3: Paying Homeless Folk to Attend his “Protests”

Joe Kaufman

What did we expect from Joe “nuke the Mooslims” Kaufman? For years now the gum-shoe “investigative journalist” has been gathering his handful of protesters to demonstrate at the conferences, gatherings, festivals and events of American Muslim organizations or leaders.

By now most in the American Muslim community and otherwise view Kaufman and his handful of protesters as curious sideshow distractions, oddities, mere nuisances and objects of fitful laughter, kinda like the Westboro Baptist Church people or Pastor Terry Jones.

Kaufman’s crew recently had one such protest on Jan, 08, 2011 at an ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) event in his home state of Florida:

Here’s a sampling of some of the…”Interesting”…messages:

“What’s Next, Fort Hood?” and “Don’t Tread on Me” flag

Granma’s scared of Mooslims:

“No Islam” and “Obama evil Mooslim”

If they weren’t holding signs claiming that “Obama (the “b” is replaced to read Osama) chooses Muslim needs to show victory over Americans…” and other general wacky anti-Muslim conspiracy theories you’d think a group of senior citizens had gathered on the corner waiting to be picked up to go to their weekly bingo game.

This in it self would be comedic gold, but it doesn’t stop there, a source who wishes to stay anonymous informed us that Kaufman and his buddies are asking homeless people to join their protests in return for pizza and spare change.

“Red” is on the bike

After Kaufman’s most recent protest ended our source noticed that they left one of their fellow protesters behind, a local homeless man who goes by the name “Red.”

Red we are told is a very nice man, he told our source that he was “paid in pizza to help in the protest” and he was also given some “spare change.” He didn’t know what the protest was about, but he was hungry and wanted to eat. So he helped!

The source also mentioned homeless people in photos of previous protests that Joe Kaufman and Americans Against Hate held, such as the one at the Islamic Center In Pompano Beach. He was told by Muslim neighbors of the Center that the people at Joe Kaufman’s protest are local homeless people.

For Kaufman this may be a new low, trying to up his pathetically low numbered “protests” by paying homeless folk. I can’t say I am surprised at Kaufman’s sleazy antics, just astonished that there are even a handful wasting their retirement. I guess the moral of the story is if you’re ever hungry and near a Kaufman protest you can assure yourself some Dominoes pizza…but unlike the homeless individual who was truly hungry you might be selling your soul, and we all know how hard it is get your soul back once you sell it for yummy food:

Who is he?:

Joe Kaufman, has been on the Anti-Muslim scene for quite a while now and is dubbed by the far Right-Wing FrontPageMag as, you guessed it…another one of their ”Investigative Journalists.”  That he has been influenced by Meir Kahane and the Kahanist ideology is well documented, as is his love and angst for Kahane.

In the past he has been accused of contributing to the terrorist organization founded by Kahane known as JDL (Jewish Defense League) while others accuse Kaufman of at the very least holding views that parallel JDL positions.

Kaufman’s unsavory associations and views are quite real and they are only dangerous to America if you’re stupid enough to swallow his conspiracy theories but other than that he is simply a half-baked paranoid conspiracy theorist, some what along the lines of the “9/11 Truthers.”

In every nook and cranny there is a “Mooslim”…hiding and ready to get ya…so beware and be afraid. Be veryyyy afraid goes his story.

In this special LoonWatch series we will detail the exploits and punchlines that Krazy Kaufman throws out there and attempts to pass on as serious journalism, commentary and investigation.

 

Matthew Yglesias: Obama’s Porkilicious Taqiyyah

Great blog from Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress. He also links to Inconnu’s piece on Taqiyyah.

Obama’s Porkilicious Taqiyya

by Matthew Yglesias

Steve M at No More Mr Nice Blog falls for the White House spin hook, line, and sinker:

Anyone remember when candidate Barack Obama was getting grief for going to Philadelphia and sampling expensive Spanish ham? Doesn’t sound like something a secret Muslim would eat — nor is the honey-baked ham the Obamas served along with the turkey last Thanksgiving. The half-smoke he got at Ben’s Chili Bowl a couple of weeks before Inauguration Day is a sausage that’s half-pork, half-beef. Oh, and the beer at that beer summit didn’t quite comport with the teachings of the Koran, did it? But all that was just weaving a web of deceit, right?

I’ll admit that for a long time my own views were along these lines. After all, the very first time I met State Senator (and US Senate candidate) Barack Obama we were at a hotel in Boston (I believe it was the Westin Copley Place) on line at a breakfast buffet fighting for the tongs to grab some bacon. But then I learned all about taqiyya which proves that counter-evidence to the “secret Muslim” thesis only demonstrates how far the conspiracy goes.

 

Robert Spencer Watch: “Obama May be a Mooslim”

As his arguments become exposed, so does he.

Robert Spencer is finished. The cloak of objectivity he claimed has long been undone, as he received blistering blows from not only Loonwatch, but former allies and mainstream organizations disavowing and condemning his anti-Muslim stance.

We have seen an odd metamorphosis on the part of Spencer. For years he tread a fine line, making statements that neared the boundary of Islamophobia without being outright anti-Muslim; veiled Islamophobia if you will. He fashioned himself as a rational, objective scholar when all along he was a right-wing Christian supremacist with an ax to grind against Islam and Muslims. Slowly the truth about who he is and what he believes came out over the past two years. One can only hide falsehood for so long.

It may be that Spencer has spent too much time with Pamela Geller, tea baggers and other nuts, or maybe this is what he has believed all along and it is in fact him influencing Geller, regardless he has hopped on a new loonie train: the “Obama is a Mooslim” conspiracy.

So lets count the conspiracies Spencer either believes or supports now:

1.) Eurabia: Muslim demographic take over of Europe.

2.) Stealth Jihad: Peaceful, law abiding Muslims are really just subverting Western Civilization and trying to impose Shariah law.

3.) Bosnia: The genocide in Bosnia and the massacre in Srebrenica never occurred or are exaggerated.

4.) Congressional Intern Spies: CAIR was sending spies into our government in the form of congressional interns.

and now,

5.) Obama is a Mooslim: The possibility that Barack Obama ever was or is still a Mooslim.

The evidence:

http://www.livingscoop.com/v/442/