Pangaea,

I haven't been following this story in the MSM. How have the Obama camp been reacting to this story, that is objectionable?

This is a most welcome post. Strongly Rec'd. Needs to be discussed and message acknowledged. Thanks.

Note: I just saw Obama on King too. His persona was that of a statesman and thoughtful, calm and intelligent man. Just what we need (for a positive change) as POTUS!

I especially appreciated his remarks regarding the 'muslim' issues. So true. Many wonderful muslims that are being disparaged through no fault of their own.

As a liberal, I would not support most Muslims for federal elected offices, because the tenets of the faith are in opposition to Enlightenment values at the core of liberalism, and I am opposed to sexism and intolerance. There are exceptions of people and communities who practice and believe a liberalized version of Islam, but the core doctrine has problems, and in most of the world, Islam is a negative social influence. In our country, Islam can't be reconciled with our contemporary Constitutional values (as currently interpreted) without distorting the core principles of the religion, but I will defend to the death the right of Muslims to worship freely and securely.

To answer the titling question of your essay:

It's a religion.

It is really disturbing, isn't it?

I'm kind of with Tankard on this one. There's nothing wrong with being a Muslim that isn't wrong with being a Christian. But I'm just an atheist like that.

Either way, I blame the media more than Obama. They're talking about this in the basest terms and they're not examining the nuances at all.

All religions suck. Someday long after I am gone perhaps the human race will transcend theology and achieve adulthood.

I voted for a muslim in a congressional race, he won by a landslide. I regret it more and more every day. I helped elect him to start a jihad on capitol hill, but nooooooo! He is patriotic, he wants to look out for the interests of all Minnesotans and all Amercians. You just can't trust a muslim to be as evil as you expect.

Obama's false denials that he ever engaged in Muslim practices (like attending mosque on Friday nights with his stepfather Lolo in Indonesia and reading aloud from the Koran in Arabic at Indonesian public school) not only lower his credibility but imply that any Muslim connection should be seen as indecent.

Why can't Barack admit his Muslim heritage while emphasizing he is a Christian now (since converting in his twenties when he joined Trinity)?

I hate to be the contrarian here, but it's always seemed to me that many of the problems we as a culture are already afflicted with stem directly from the pervasiveness here of Christianity. With that in mind, I'm deeply uncomfortable with what I see as widespread liberal promotion of another patriarchal, authoritarian, socially regressive Abrahamic religion, simply because this non-native religion happens to be an object of scorn among our native religionists and right-wingers generally.

People, the enemy of your enemy is not always and automatically your friend. Normative Islam is if anything more wrong on all the social issues we care about than normative Christianity. Islamic clerics regularly advocate a level of social conservatism far beyond anything the likes of Pat Robertson would ever dream of proposing. The only reason American Muslims aren't already one of the GOP's most reliable voting blocks is that the conservative movement remains uncomfortable with integrating non-Christians and people of color. As the current generation ages out of the movement, though, that will very likely change, and our Religious Right will become an interfaith coalition.