Have you or one of your family members received one of those nasty chain letters? One of the most popular ones going around accuses Obama of being a Muslim. This is one of the oldest attacks against Obama and should not even need to be discussed. Still, there have been reports of people still receiving these emails and one poster who goes by the name TubeSockFan drafted up a nice letter you can use to respond with if you ever receive this. Here is the email, please feel free to pass it around.
Hello,
I recently received a mass-forwarded e-mail about Barack Obama (Who is Barack Obama) and his supposed ties to radical Islam. This claim has already been rebuked through the media, but this is a very sensitive subject, capable of causing a lot of hate and pain if consistently misreported. I write not to persuade you to vote for or support Senator Obama, but rather to try to bring a little bit of justice into the marketplace of ideas.
I have no issue with people not liking Barack Obama based on his policies or even based on him personally, in a world as large as ours it’s a bit too much to expect that everyone will get along with each other. This is America and part of what I love about it is that we can all make our own informed decisions. When something is outright false though I believe we should do what we can to help inform our neighbors (even virtual ones). Please take some time and forward this along regardless of your political leanings because Democrat or Republican, Conservative, Moderate or Liberal no one should be making decisions on lies.
If you have any doubts about Obama and his religious background, please read this article from Snopes.com, the most reliable and reputable authority for the de-bunking of myths and rumors.http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp
A couple brief excerpts from the article:
Barack Obama was, in fact, sworn in on a bible.
Barack Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim (As with everything else in the e-mail quoted at the head of the page, this is asserted as “fact” despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.) “Senator Obama has never been a Muslim,” Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said. “As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism.” Barack Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s, describes himself as a Christian, and says that he is “rooted in the Christian tradition.”
“When he was a child in Indonesia, Obama spent a couple of years at a Catholic school and another couple of years at a school that was predominantly Muslim (because Indonesia itself is predominantly Muslim). In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia; not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances.”
You can also find out more information on FactCheck.org Another site devoted to debunking untruths on the internet and in the press.
Again, please keep in mind that I’m not writing to try to persuade you to support Senator Obama. There is nothing wrong with disliking the man for his ideas and policies. However, the kind of misinformation that has been forwarded in emails like this are motivated not by politics but by prejudice, and can be very dangerous to our democracy.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
(Your Name)If you feel this is a truthful message please forward it on.
Furthermore on Obama’s web site, they recently added a section with some similar letters responding to other attacks that have been made against him recently. All you need to do is put in the offending email address and it will send automatically send it. Check it out.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/factcheckactioncenter/
