There are many shades of grey between being religion X and not being or disavowing religion X.* I agree Mr. Obama does not declare himself a Muslim and is not a registered practicing Muslim (if Muslims indeed register :dontknow.* However, I have no doubt that he is sympathetic to that religion and has many close friends and relatives who are practicing Muslims.* Not that he is required to, but I think it is true that he never disavowed that religion.* Yes, he claims to have NEVER been a Muslim.* But the facts debunk that as well.*

Debunking that he is not now a Muslim compared to never having been or not presently having warm hearted sympathies and/or latent allegience are two very different things.

Religious sympathies are very important (to me) if one is sympathetic to the world religion which accounts for 99% of terrorist acts in the world, where 5% of the 1 billion claimed adherants (that would be about 50,000,000) have "radical" jihadist tendencies, beliefs and practice, and the other 95% are really "unknown" quantities becasue of the Islamic teaching of Taqiyya (تقيّة) the mostly Shi'a principle that one is allowed to hide one's true beliefs in certain circumstances.