Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

You continue to do exactly what candidate Obama said those that opposed him would do. Why?

Bucco, as you know, I voted for Barack Obama because I thought he was the better of the two candidates I had to choose from. So I was one of those that defended his qualifications for the job of President. So far, while there are some things I would have liked him to do differently, I think he's doing a pretty good job--better than I think his opponent might have done had he been elected and faced the same problems as has President Obama.

But back to religion. Why should anyone be upset over the religion of a candidate, even one who was successful in being elected to the U.S. Presidency? There are roughly 2.1 billion Christians in the world and about 1.5 billion Muslims. Within 20-30 years, it's pretty well accepted that Islam will be the largest religion in the world. Most of western Europe will be majority Muslim. Even in the U.S., in only the last 10-15 years, the number of Muslims has increased geometrically. Islam is growing more rapidly than any other religion in the U.S. In the last 15-20 years, the number of people who identify themselves as Muslims have increased at a rate about 25 times the rate that those who say they are Christian have grown. The number of mosques in the U.S. has increased 25% in less than ten years. Average mosque attendance at Friday prayers has nearly doubled. The number of Americans who call themselves Muslims has increased from only about 500,000 to over 6 million--in less than ten years!

Is there some legitimate reason that we should be upset over President Obama's childhood experience with Islam? With a father who practiced the religion, but abandoned his son on at least two occasions and didn't really serve as his father for more than a couple of years of his life? President Obama is a practicing Christian now--at least when he attends church, it is a Christian church. But regardless of his religious preference, has that in any way affected his performance as President? Are there any decisions one can point to that seem to be influenced by his religion, whatever it is? Is his experience with Islam any more alarming today than John Kennedy's Catholicism was back in the early 1960's? Was the performance of either affected by his religion? The Pope didn't impact on Kennedy's performance, as his critics said would happen. And so far, I see no evidence that Muhammed has affected Obama's governance of the country.

I think you've been one who have encouraged our elected representatives to perform consistent with the Constitution. Have you forgotten the First Amendment? Among other things, the First Amendment to the Constitution expressly prohibits anything that would interfere with the free exercise of religion. Our belief that the founding fathers felt strongly that the affairs of church and state should be expressly separated flows from that Amendment to the Constitution.

But you continue to do exactly what the President said would be done by those that oppose him. You continue to make statements designed to alarm people based on Obama's supposed experience with Islam. You're not at all specific, but your implication that his religion--whatever it is--is bad for America.

I'm left to disagree with you...again.