Did you know: 1 out of 10 voters think Obama is Muslim?
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
July 3, 2008
The Pew Research Center, which always seems to come up with great surveys and statistics, recently asked people if they think that Barack Obama is Muslim. 10% of people said “yes”, which is obviously wrong. Do people think that Islam is an ethnicity and not a religion? Or do they think that anybody who lived in Indonesia is a Muslim? Well, it’s probably not the latter… because most Americans don’t even know that Indonesia is a Muslim country. So they must be basing their conclusions on faulty assumptions or random rumors… and if you look at the actual data, it’s even more convincing:
- —The opinions are divided across party lines. 16% of conservative Republicans were skeptical of Obama’s beliefs, while only 5% of liberal Democrats felt the same way.
- —16% of evangelical Protestants thought that Obama was Muslim, while only 7% of mainline Protestants agreed. However, neither group was much more likely than the other (50% vs. 59%, respectively) to believe that he’s Christian.
- —More educated people are less likely to have the misconception. Among college graduates, 73% think he’s Christian and 5% think he’s Muslim; among people who didn’t go to college, half as many people think he’s Christian (37%) and three times as many believe he’s Muslim (15%).
- —People are very divided based on their region. 19% of rural residents believe that Obama is Muslim, probably because they’re not as well-exposed to different cultures. In cities and suburbs, the number is less than half as much. The same sort of trend is evident if you compare the Northeast (7%), the West (6%), the Midwest (13%), and the South (13%).
I’m almost ashamed to live in a non-urban Midwestern area. It’s obvious that among people who have more experience with world cultures and religions (college graduates, urban residents, people on the East Coast), Obama’s religion is much less of a controversy. Personally, I don’t even understand how people can make a controversy out of an unquestionable fact… I guess we’ll have to wait until November to see how big of an effect this has on the election.
Popularity: 46% [?]
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The irritating aspect to me is that the Obama campaign is making such an effort to distance itself from Muslims, conceding to this sort of politics that plays on the “Muslims are bad, mkay?” mentality.
The Obama campaign in Iowa asked Keith Ellison to stay home in Minneapolis because they had a “tightly controlled message.” The Obama campaign asked two Muslim women to move from directly behind him so that the cameras wouldn’t catch them. It’s disappointing in a candidacy putatively oriented towards changning attitudes.
Whatever my atheistic views of Islam may be, I am not so blindsided by my disgust for the religion that I am afraid of Muslim individuals, and I think that in order to truly represent change the Obama campaign should recognize that Muslims as people are valued members of society. I would like to hear Obama announce “While the rumors and innuendo that I am Muslim are untrue, so what if they were true?”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/mccain-repudiates-hussein-obama-remarks/
Considering his middle name is Hussein, his father was raised a Muslim, he went to a Muslim school in Indonesia for a few years, and various people have spread e-mails, articles, and rumors claiming he is Muslim, it is not unbelievable that many ill-informed individuals believe this sort of stuff.
Mike, it’s definitely true that he’s distancing himself from Muslims, but I don’t know if he has much of a choice. I was brought up in a Muslim household (and I have many Muslim friends/relatives) and honestly, we’ve grown accustomed to this sort of treatment in the US. We don’t actually blame Obama for what he’s doing… we understand that this is what he needs to do to get elected. I’d rather have him do what he’s doing and get elected than have him be more open but not get elected.