I know most of us are media-savvy enough to recognize spammed lies when we see 'em. But I've gotten an anti-Barack Obama email -- sent, as too many are, by well-meaning evangelical friends -- that was outrageous. I figure others might appreciate having the record set straight. Though I do personally support Obama's candidacy, this isn't about whether you vote for him or not. Rather it is a lesson in lies.
The version of the email I got begins with this:
"Who is Barack Obama? If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States... better heed this and pray about it and share it. We checked this out on "snopes.com". It is factual. Check for yourself."
Wow. Snopes? That's a website where falsehoods on the web are exposed, and a good place to "bookmark" for research purposes. So, if Snopes says the email is true, well...
I guess the anti-Email's authors were hoping no one would take them up on their lies and actually go check Snopes.com. Because if you do, as I did, you find out what you strongly suspected: they are bald-faced LIARS. See: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp
Snopes exposes every falsehood in the letter, from Obama's alleged ties to radical "Wahabi" Islam via the alleged "Wahabi" school he attended (LIE: exposed by both CNN and the Associated Press) to his being a Muslim, period (he was attending Catholic school at the age of six and has never claimed any faith except the Christian faith -- he currently attends a Chicago United Church of Christ.)
Where did the idea he was a Wahabi Muslim originate? Ha. Turns out that Insight magazine, a spin-off of the Washington Times, came up with the story. Both publications are owned by Sun Myung Moon, the head of the "Moonies" (Unification Church), which teaches that Moon is the Messiah and his wife is the Holy Spirit. Oh, and Moon made much of his fortune via arms dealing! (Gotta love it--a Messiah making firearms.)
But there's more. For instance, the email claims (again, wrongly) of Obama that "when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran."
Completely false. Actually, there was another congressman (Keith Ellison of Minnesota), who is openly Muslim and did get sworn in on the Koran.
But Barack was NOT sworn in that way. He's not a Muslim. And so on and so on... Oh, another great LIE had to do with Obama allegedly refusing to say the pledge of allegiance. Also untrue.
Anyway, if nothing else, this email is therapeutic for me. I was not intending to start my day upset.... but even for politics, this lying email was a new low.
One additional note. When an email begs you to "pass this on to your friends," please, please, make sure what you are passing on is actually fact. Use snopes.com and other sites to double-check the email's legitimacy. Ask around. As Christians, we can unwittingly participate in further lies and gossip which are highly destructive not only to someone's candidacy, but moreso to someone's personhood.
Blessings,
Jon Trott
...And as one blog addition to the above, may I say that having a Muslim president makes at least as much sense as having a president who's Mormon. Having an evangelical president certainly hasn't worked out all that well, and is a project a growing number of Christ followers (including me) have little interest in. So nothing I wrote above should be read as suggesting that someone's faith (of whatever flavor) should disqualify them for the Presidency.
tag: Barack Obama, conspiracy, evangelicals for obama, Obama 2008, obama koran, Obama Muslim, obama pledge of allegiance, obama school, obama wahabi, snopes
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