I have been following the proposed mosque on Ground Zero debate which has polarized both political parties and different factions across the nation for awhile now. I have gleaned from numerous TV news stations that the role of pundits in the American political arena is to foment controversy and this particular issue has reached a level where some people have started to question President Obama's religious affiliations. A Fox News survey showed that "Nearly 1 in 5 Americans think that Obama is a Muslim"
I then started to wonder, so what if Obama is a Muslim? How does that affect his presidency anymore than him being a Christian could affect his presidency. I asked some christian friends of mine whether Obama being a muslim would stop them from voting for him. They all said No, I was pleased with their answer but I still pressed on. I asked them why Obama being a Muslim did not bother them? After all, Obama as a Muslim would not have Christian values, his moral standards should naturally come into question. They all said that they would still vote for him because his religion should be different from his candidacy. According to them, religion is a private thing, it should be different from public office.
I changed the question to "If Obama was an atheist, would you still vote for him?" and that is when it got interesting. A lot of them said NO. Now this begs the obvious question, if religion should not play a part in his candidacy why then would you refuse to vote for him if he's atheist? From their responses, I gathered that subconsciously or even consciously, religion does play a huge role in the way some of us make a decision on who to vote for as candidates for public office.
Works Cited
Fox News Survey
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