Emails Are Not Truth

I received an email the other day.  You know the kind.  It’s been forwarded 800 times before it reaches you and at the end of the message it urges you to send it to 800 other people.  Sometimes it’s a joke or funny video.  Sometimes it’s an annoying picture of a kitten doing something cute stupid.  All too often it’s a list of unsubstantiated “facts” about things like duck quacks.

The email in question made me angrier than I have been in a long time.  Not because it disagreed with my point of view, but because it did so with such outright lies.  Lies that were being believed by every person who forwarded the email.

It starts with a series of questions apparently answered by some guy who has worked in Saudi Arabia.  The writer of this email mentions this of course in an attempt to lend credence to what follows.  What follows is a series of questions and answers meant to prove that no Muslim can be a good American.  I love blanket generalizations.

After apparently proving all Muslims are the fruits of the devil (pronounced So, I Married An Axe Murderer style).  It then says:

And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our President? You have GOT to be kidding! Wake up America !

Obama even says if he wins the election, he will be sworn in on the Quran—not a Bible!

He was sworn in on the Quran for his current office and he refuses to pledge allegiance to the United States or put his hand over his heart when the National Anthem is played!

Every single statement there is a lie.

Now I am not telling you who to vote for.  What I am asking of you is that you learn about the issues, and do your own research.  And most of all, don’t believe anything you read in a freaking email.

Barack Obama is a Christian.

He is not an Evangelical or Orthodox Christian, but he is what some call a Progressive Christian.  According to the religious right, Obama is too liberal to be a true Christian. However, don’t confuse their lack of acceptance with the liars calling him Muslim.

His father, a Kenyan, was raised a Muslim. However, long before Obama was born, his father had become an Atheist. Not that that matters since his father split when Obama was 2-years-old.

Barack’s mother was described by his sister as an agnostic.  “She basically gave us all the good books – the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripture, the Tao Te Ching – and wanted us to recognise that everyone has something beautiful to contribute. … Mom didn’t really emphasise the Koran, but we read little parts of it.” (source a site from England, hence the spelling of certain words)  And yes, during the few years they lived in Indonesia, a heavily Muslim country, his mother enrolled him in a Muslim school as a Muslim, but they were never practicing Muslims.

They moved back to America when he was 10.  For a while, Obama stayed away from any organized religion.  His mother had had bad experiences with organizations who claimed to be Christian and as a result was skeptical of organized religion.  To quote Obama from The Audacity of Hope, “My mother’s own experiences… only reinforced this inherited skepticism.”  He remained spiritual, but avoided organized religion, as his mom had, until he found a church that coincided with the values his mother instilled in him.

This church is Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. They have often been criticized by mainstream Christian churches because, as Trinity United puts it, “In a sea of conservative black churches, Trinity stands out in that it has welcomed gay members, done outreach to people living with AIDS and advocated progressive positions on many social issues.”

Barack Obama is not a Muslim. He may not be your brand of Christian, and his spiritual journey may have been different than yours, but he is not a Muslim.  Again fom his sister, same source, “[Islam] has been erroneously attached to my brother. The man has been a Christian for 20 years.”  And to quote Obama:

“Let’s make clear what the facts are: I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible. I pledge allegiance and lead the pledge of allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate when I’m presiding.” (source)

Make your own decisions, but base them on the truth, not these ridiculous emails that seem to be accepted without question. Don’t let others do the research for you.  You have got to do your own foot work.   Please don’t leave it to some schmuck sending you an email.

And, by the way, a duck’s quack does echo, in case you fell for that email as well.