On Saturday, Pat Boone, a conservative political commentator, Christian activist, writer and preacher, put the entire American cat population among the pigeons with his article entitled “The mosque at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”.
This comes at a time when more Americans believe that US President Barack Obama is a Muslim than was the case over a year ago.
According to a poll, conducted before Obama made known his controversial opinion on the Ground Zero mosque, 18% of respondents believe this to be the case. Previously, only 11% thought he was a Muslim during March 2009. According to the poll, 34% got it right, saying he was a Christian, while 43% said that they didn’t know which religion Obama followed.
Obama pointed out that allowing a mosque at the Ground Zero site fits in with the American Constitution and followed the values of freedom of religion. Significantly, in a poll conducted after the president’s remarks about the mosque, 24% said he was Muslim, 47% that he’s Christian, and 24% didn’t know.
Boone’s position is simple: While Obama says that he is a Christian, everything he does shows that he is in fact a Muslim.
“Almost immediately upon assuming the presidency, he began to make statements claiming America was no longer a Christian nation and that America might be considered a Muslim nation. While the controversy still rises and rages on, around the proposed ‘Cordoba House’ mosque and Muslim cultural center right on the edge of Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center stood till Sept. 11, 2001 — there is a world-famous building, dedicated by its current residents to similar purposes, in the middle of Washington, DC”
“We call it the White House.” (Boone)
Boone is unapologetic, claiming that everything Obama does is unbefitting of someone who calls himself a Christian and is indisputable proof of his link to Islam.
Among evangelists Boone is by no means alone with the Reverend Franklin Graham, son of the Reverend Billy Graham, also attacking Obama’s Christian faith.
If regard is had to the polls, one in five Americans believe that Obama is Muslim.
Professor Ramzi Kassem, in a thought provoking article in the New York Daily News, puts forward a case for Americans using religion as a proxy for race. He believes that racism today is taboo, so why not find a more “legitimate” reason for hating America’s first black president?
What is indisputable is, as Kassem says: “The view that our president is a secret Muslim appears to have taken hold of the American mind.”
With the Christian right going out of its way to substantiate the view that Obama is a secret Muslim it is going to be of interest to political analysts to see what effect this will have on the upcoming elections in the fall.
Conservative Pat Buchanan says that Obama completely missed the point: “This is not a question of ‘Can they build a mosque near Ground Zero?’”
“Is it a question of ‘Should they build a mosque in the shadow of the twin towers, where 3 000 Americans were suffocated, crushed or burned to death by Islamic fanatics whose Muslim faith was integral to their mission of mass murder and to their identity?”
“Unless one is without kidney, spleen, heart or common sense, the answer would be “No!” (Buchanan)
Buchanan, who ran for president, then goes on to say: “While that Constitution guarantees freedom of religious belief and practice to all Americans, we were a Christian country then. And we remain a Christian country, Barack Obama’s dissent notwithstanding.
“Three-in-four Americans profess a Christian faith. That reality is not changed because the Warren court outlawed Bible reading and prayer in public school, ordered the Ten Commandants taken down from classroom walls, purged Christianity from our public institutions or denies to Americans their freedom to put Christmas creches in their public squares.” (Buchanan)
How then will this translate when voters go to the polls?
According to the New York Times Vice-President Joseph Biden admonished Democrats on Friday to shake away their pessimism about the mid-terms, arguing the prospect of historic losses would be minimised because the Republican Party has been overtaken by extreme candidates and stale ideas.
This is fighting talk — but is perhaps unconvincing — as present indications are that the Democrats are heading for a battering.
Professor Kassem sets out the following: “Many past presidents, perhaps all, sank in popularity during their tenure, but the result was not a widely held belief that the chief executive lied about his core identity.”
How much this perception will effect the Democrats will be known this fall, together with the prospects of an Obama second term.
Interesting times indeed.
@Hugh: you make the common mistake of thinking that all 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are associated with Saudi Arabia. It would be like if someone said to me “Well, Christians are intolerant because you can’t have a mosque at the Vatican!” WTF would I care and what’s it to do with me? I’m Presbyterian.
Similarly, there are many different flavors of Islam, from the mystical Sufi to the militant Wahhabi. And politically they range across the spectrum. It is in the best interests of Americans to support the moderate strains of Islam and to continue to integrate moderate Muslims into our society.
I’m glad that American Muslims are confident enough in their American-ness to agitate for something that there is no reason to oppose on legal grounds (they meet the permit specifications) rather than back down meekly, which is hardly the American way. And I think it would be taking bullets out of al-Qaeda’s chambers if we could point to an interfaith center blocks away from Ground Zero when they start blathering about how America is waging war on Islam.
Also, please keep in mind Muslim does not equal Arab. More than 70% of Muslims live east and south of the Middle East. Much like the New York cabdriver stabbed by the nutter–he was from Bangladesh. Should he be held responsible for Saudi governance? Should I be held responsible for Swedish governance? Your logic leaves gaping holes.
hds – couldn’t agree more with your balanced, well informed comments.
Obama will not be damned by the mosque. He will be damned by the debt. This debt is actually from the two wars from the Bush administration started and their debt. Clinton left the USA ahead, Bush buried them financially, Obama has a vision and some decent ideas but past debt is now blamed on his reforms and not the wars.
But really Obama is no left wing rebel but a bit of dick for accepting a peace prize while involved in two wars with no exit strategy.
Obama is saying the US should allow the mosque because of the country’s attitude towards religious freedom and tolerance. If they are so “tolerant” why does a country with the motto “Gold Bless America” ban praying in schools and now there is the issue of whether teachers and children can say “God bless you” or even “Bless you” to each other when they sneeze? Truly a very weird country!
@storm, you’ve been sadly misinformed. No one has an issue with “bless you” when you sneeze, I live in the US and I’ve never once heard this as an issue.
As for prayer in schools: no one can ban praying in schools, I’m sure students still pray desperately before exams as they have always done; what we ban is school-SPONSORED prayer. Students are free to gather before and after school on school property to pray, and they can pray in groups during free time, and of course on their own, they can pray anytime they choose as it is their own thought life and no one can regulate it. We ban school-sponsored prayer because it implies an affirmation of a particular religion, even if that religion is just theism, which is prohibited by our First Amendment.
@hds Thanks for bringing thoughtfulness and accurate information to this discussion. As an American expat living in SA for years now, I’ve often felt a bit of frustration that while I’m not really aloud to opine on SA politics, everyone has an (of course accurate) opinion on American politics. We obviously have less news and context than you do, so it’s helpful to hear thoughts from someone in the middle of it with more opportunity to consume a variety of sources.