Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories
Allegations that Barack Obama secretly practices Islam,[1] or that he is the antichrist of Christian eschatology, or covertly holds some other esoteric religious position, have been suggested since he campaigned for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and proliferated after his election as President of the United States in 2008.
Belief in these claims in the public sphere endured and, in some cases, even expanded during Obama's presidency according to the Pew Research Center, with 17% of Americans (including one third of conservative Republicans) believing him to be a Muslim in a 2012 poll.
In the political culture of the United States, mythologies of nativism and the immigrant identity of many citizens have often been in tension.
As a result of the absence of a clear definition of a "natural born Citizen", a history developed of claims against presidents and presidential candidates asserting that citizenship of other nations held in addition to US citizenship, or aspects of ethnicity or religion, made them constitutionally unqualified to hold the office.
According to the Los Angeles Times, false rumors saying that Obama was secretly a Muslim started during his campaign for the United States Senate in 2004 and had expanded through viral e-mails by 2006.
[10] In December 2007, the Hillary Clinton campaign asked a volunteer county coordinator to step down after she forwarded an e-mail message which repeated the false rumor that Obama was Muslim.
Bloomberg said: "I hope all of you will join me throughout this campaign in strongly speaking out against this fear mongering, no matter who you'll be voting for.
"[12] In 2015, Taha al-Lahibi, a former member of the Iraqi parliament known for promoting fringe conspiracy theories, claimed that Obama was "the son of a Shiite Kenyan father."
The claim may have been inspired by a photo-op re-enactment of the 2007 swearing-in of U.S. Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who used a Qur'an that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
[21] An early version of a rumor that Obama had "spent at least four years in a so-called madrasa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia"[10] appeared in an article published by Insight on the News, a magazine published by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate then owned by the Unification Church.
[23][24][25] Soon after Insight's story, CNN reporter John Vause visited State Elementary School Menteng 01 and found that each student received two hours of religious instruction per week in their own faith.
During an interview with ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos two months before the 2008 presidential election, Obama said:[30][31] What I was suggesting — you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith.Fact-checking website Snopes rated the claim that "Barack Obama admitted to being a Muslim during an ABC News interview" as "false".
[32] Public opinion surveys carried out, beginning in 2008, have shown that a number of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim.
The survey found that respondents who had shifted to the misconception were generally younger, less politically involved, less educated, more conservative, and more likely to believe in Biblical literalism.
According to Professor Barry Hollander, "These are groups of people who are generally distrustful of the mainstream media...So therefore journalists telling them that this is not true could actually have the opposite effect and make them more likely to believe the rumor.
"[34] In August 2010, a Pew Research poll showed that 18% of Americans and 30% of Republicans believed that Obama is a Muslim.
Haris Tarin of the Muslim Public Affairs Council said that the survey "shows there's a lot of fear-mongering and politicking in America".
During a debate of Democratic presidential candidates on January 15, 2008, in Las Vegas, Nevada, the moderator, Brian Williams, asked Obama about the rumor that he was "trying to hide the fact that he is a Muslim".
[46][47] In October 2010 the White House announced that it was cancelling a stop at the Golden Temple during Obama's trip to India.
[50] During the 2008 presidential campaign, one chain e-mail accused Obama of secretly being the biblical Antichrist, saying: According to The Book of Revelations the anti-christ is: The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, he will destroy everything is it OBAMA?
[53] During the 2008 United States presidential election, psychologist Alan J. Lipman wrote a fictitious parody account of a "Dr.
[55] Collins having noted the coincidence of Easter and Passover falling in the same week, wrote that "Americans with less religious inclinations can look forward to the upcoming Earth Day celebrations, when the president is planning to do something as yet unannounced, but undoubtedly special, and Arbor Day, when rumor has it that he will not just plant a tree, but personally reforest a large swath of the nation of Mali".
