Half of Americans Do Not Know the President’s Religion

Three and a half years into President Obama’s first term as president, half of Americans cannot accurately say what religion he is, according to a poll released this week.

Only 49 percent of respondents said that Obama was Christian while 17 percent inaccurately said he was Muslim. Nearly one-third of respondents said they did not know the president’s religion, according to the poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

More people – 60 percent – knew that Romney, who has not held elected office in a decade, was Mormon than knew which religion the sitting president subscribes to.

And while only 9 percent of respondents said Romney was a religion that he is not, more than twice that amount said Obama adheres to a religion other than Christianity. The vast majority of those claiming Obama is not a Christian said he was a Muslim.

Nearly one in three Republicans said Obama was Muslim, twice as many as in 2008, the Pew study shows.

“Unfortunately there has been a development of a bizarre echo chamber within right wing of the political spectrum that truth and reality have failed to penetrate,” said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director at Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. “It’s a self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing delusion.”
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