Lie that won't die: Obama is Muslim

Americans in line at the grocery checkout counter easily catch a glimpse of the conspiracy theories percolating about President Obama. "Birthplace Cover-Up," screams the current issue of the racy tabloid Globe. "Obama's Secret Life Exposed!"

The article claims, without proof, that he uses a phony Social Security number as "part of an elaborate scheme to conceal that he is not a natural-born U.S. citizen."

Obama aides posted his Hawaii birth certificate on the Internet during his presidential campaign, and state officials, including the Republican governor, have confirmed its authenticity. Yet polls show as many as one-quarter of Americans believe he wasn't born in the U.S.

Now comes fresh evidence of another misperception taking root in the public mind: A poll shows nearly one in every five people, or 18 percent, believe Obama is Muslim, up from 11 percent who said so in March 2009. The survey also shows only 34 percent believe Obama is Christian, down from 48 percent last year. The largest share, 43 percent, said they don't know his religion.

The survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, is based on interviews conducted before the controversy over whether Muslims should be permitted to construct a community center and mosque near the World Trade Center site. Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center there; he won't take a position on whether they should build it.

In a poll by Time magazine/ABT SRBI conducted Monday and Tuesday — after Obama's comments — 24 percent said they believe he is Muslim, 47 percent said they believe he is Christian and 24 percent didn't know or didn't respond.

The Pew poll found that about three in every 10 Republicans and conservatives say he is a Muslim. That is up significantly from last year. But even among supporters, the number saying he is a Christian has fallen since 2009 — 43 percent of blacks and 46 percent of Democrats. Among independents, 18 percent say he is Muslim — up from 10 percent.

Pastors who have prayed with Obama defended his Christian faith Thursday after the new polls surfaced.

"He is a Christian by choice, a devout Christian," said Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Houston Methodist and one of several Christian leaders whom Obama regularly calls. Caldwell also officiated at the wedding of President George W. Bush's daughter Jenna.

All presidents deal with image problems — they're too weak or too belligerent, too far left or far right. But Obama faces questions over documented facts.

"Trust and distrust — that explains almost all of it," said Nicholas DiFonzo, professor of psychology at the Rochester Institute of Technology and an expert on rumor and gossip research. "We are in such a highly polarized political environment. Our country is sorting itself into more closely knit, opposing factions each year" — factions, he suggested, that in turn become "echo chambers" for factoids that aren't fact at all.

Confusion about Obama's religion was common, and sometimes encouraged, in 2008. A photograph circulated on the Internet, and posted on The Drudge Report, showed Obama dressed in traditional local garments during a 2006 visit to Kenya. Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton may have contributed in a "60 Minutes" interview when asked if Obama is a Muslim. "There's nothing to base that on," she said. "As far as I know."

Others have helped keep rumors about his religion and birth alive. Conservative commentators including radio talk-show host Michael Savage have repeated debunked claims that Obama attended a radical Muslim madrassa in Indonesia. Rush Limbaugh has facetiously referred to "Imam Obama" in recent days. Lou Dobbs gave significant airtime to "birther" claims on CNN.

We never have been without misperceptions, but they are speeded and multiplied in the Internet age. Right-wing bloggers, citing unnamed police sources, reported last month that the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas had captured two ranches near Laredo, Texas. Author-pundit Michelle Malkin and other conservatives picked up the story.

The raids never happened.

"The Internet has made it worse," said Lori Robertson, managing editor of FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan project run under the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. "Any of these rumors are more rampant, and there's more stuff about them — blogs writing about conspiracy theories. People are exposed to it more."

Robertson says FactCheck has been asked hundreds of times about Obama's religion, even after an explanatory article in early 2008 called "Sliming Obama."

FactCheck focused on the chain e-mail that many believe helped spread the lie. Obama was sworn into office as a U.S. senator using the Bible instead of the Quran; a photo was posted to prove it. Videos of Obama reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in the Senate were posted, to counter claims that he refused.

Still, questions about his faith didn't stop.

Superstitions and myths are timeless and universal, and so are the people who exploit them, whether Holocaust deniers, race supremacists or conspiracy theorists.

And so millions have believed the country was overrun with communists, that John F. Kennedy was taking orders from the pope, that Saddam Hussein or even Bush helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks.

DiFonzo, the psychology professor, was stunned last year when a student raised her hand and insisted, "But George Bush was behind the bombings of Sept. 11."

"She was serious," DiFonzo said.

"This isn't a partisan thing," he said. "It's not a characteristic of Democrats or of Republicans. It's a human characteristic. It's a place that we happen to be at in our culture today. What seems outlandish is often based on what we think may be plausible."

Compiled from The Associated Press, The New York Times and McClatchy Newspapers