Is Obama Lying About His Religion? Do You Even Care?

Many Americans now believe Barack Hussein Obama to be Muslim. Yet most Americans simply do not know if Obama is secretly Muslim. They cannot know. And that's what sounds to be ringing the greatest alarms.

CNN pundits, for instance, breathily extol religious freedom as an American sacrament. Every next breath, though, they bemoan how much campaigning -- so-called educating -- will be required to persuade Americans that Obama is no secret Muslim. From one breath to the next -- totally oblivious to their superlative hypocrisy. Yes, it's fine being Muslim in America. But no way should anyone ever think Barack Obama actually is Muslim. God forbid anyone even think Obama isn't Christian.

Not in my back yard. Not with my daughter. Not my elected President.

It isn't mere hypocrisy. It's hillarity. As when the White House declared Obama must be Christian – since he prays twice daily. That's right -- only twice. Not five times.

But of course everyone already knows all about constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. Even on CNN -- surely that can't be news. Not in this century. So what, really, is the issue?

Actually, there would not have been any issue. The subject would never have come up if only Obama had not been heard to gratuitously endorse the Ground Zero mosque. Americans did not know Obama's religion -- and would have been perfectly content to continue neither knowing nor much caring. Why should Americans have given a first, nevermind second thought to Obama's religion? Obama was elected President -- not Pope. Not Ayatollah. There would have been no issue or subject to debate.

But Obama was heard to gratuitously endorse the Ground Zero mosque. And even though Obama clarified the very next day he was not commenting on the wisdom but merely the right to place that mosque at Ground Zero? Americans just can't believe it. Because if Obama was just generally pontificating America's religious freedoms -- to contrast, say, Iran's -- then why particularly, specifically only mention that Ground Zero mosque?

That's what Americans cannot understand. How and why the Ground Zero Mosque can figure as Obama's example in chief when it comes to religious freedom. Since no one can really believe that placing that mosque precisely at Ground Zero is about religious freedom. Since everyone already knows how placing that mosque precisely at Ground Zero is about religious hatred.

Everyone knows it. Not just because Hamas is backing it. Or because there are no legitimately practicing Muslims requiring such a place of worship at Ground Zero – a commercial district. Or because, as Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, director-general of Al-Arabiya TV wrote, legitimate Muslims would not even want there to be a mosque at Ground Zero – “.. it will become an arena for the promoters of hatred, and a monument to those who committed the crime."

We know placing that mosque precisely at Ground Zero is about religious hatred because we understand the difference between legitimate Muslims and Islamists. Because we get the meaning of militant Islamic fundamentalism – Islamism – in the West. And it wasn’t 9/11 that taught us the difference, either. It’s a spurious and pernicious myth that we’ve become Islamophobic since 9/11. In the tolerant West we do not mistake all Muslims for militant fundamentalists. We know far better.

It was the days after 9/11. Whenever we’ve seen the dancing in Middle-Eastern Islamist streets. Seen it on T.V. Seen it on Al-Jazeera and CNN. The collective Islamist rejoicing. And we even tried laughing it off – with the (non)Muhammad cartoons, for instance. We tried laughing Islamism off as we would Christian fundamentalism.

There’s no laughing Islamist hatred off, though. We get it. In New York and in London. In Madrid, Moscow and Mumbai. In Africa, Asia, Europe, America and, of course, the Middle East. Nobody laughs off Islamist hatred. Everyone gets it.

Islam is a great religion of peace – increasingly hijacked by militant Islamic fundamentalists. By Islamists. And nobody can ignore how evil Islamists are. Because, by this day and age, only Islamist societies remain sufficiently fundamentalist to righteously enslave women, terrorize every other culture there is and proudly declare their genocidal ambitions.

The Ground Zero mosque is not for legitimate Muslims. Legitimate Muslims don’t want a mosque at Ground Zero. Placing that mosque at Ground Zero is for the Islamists. Because only at Ground Zero will that mosque become destination 1 for Islamists to come celebrate 9/11. Only at Ground Zero can that mosque become Islamism’s holiest site. Only at Ground Zero will that mosque stand legacy to Islamist supremacy.

That’s the real reason Obama’s religious beliefs have become such an issue. Because after endorsing placing that mosque at Ground Zero as if doing so were about religious freedom – rather than religious hatred? We can no longer conceive what Obama was thinking.

Why would Obama support placing that mosque at Ground Zero? There’s no issue whether Obama be Muslim or Christian. The real issue is how Obama really feels about every Islamist cause that Ground Zero mosque will so immaculately serve.

Perhaps, just maybe, Democratic pundits and mainstream media commentators should cease blaming anti-Islamic sentiments for the ire Obama has roused. Because our ire is anti-Islamist -- not anti-Islamic. Because most people can tell the difference. Because, among those that cannot, pundits and commentators are themselves fanning Islamophobic flames.

Instead of blaming anti-Islamic sentiments and educating how truly Christian Obama is? Why not reassure that Obama can harbor no Islamist sympathies? That Obama fully understands how Islamism contradicts everything America stands for – and how Islamist sympathy can mean nothing but enmity for freedom and democracy?