Barack Obama Muslim rumor

The Barack Obama Muslim rumor is a false rumor which claims that United States Senator Barack Obama was raised a Muslim or is currently a Muslim as an adult. It has been circulating, primarily via the Internet especially through e-mail messages, since 2004.

In January 2007, , a neoconservative online magazine and sister publication to the Moon Unification Church's Washington Times, reported an allegation that the opposition research war room of 2008 American Democratic Party presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton had told them rival candidate Barack Obama's Indonesian elementary school (State Elementary School Menteng 01) was a "Muslim seminary" and that Obama himself was "raised as a Muslim" by his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro. This rumor was picked up by Fox News, but denied by both Clinton and Obama. CNN sent a reporter to visit the school Obama had attended as a child and reported that it was (at the time of the CNN visit) a public school for people of all faiths.

The debunked allegations were repeated six months later by radio commentator Michael Savage, who said on his nationally-syndicated show that Obama was "indoctrinated" by a "Muslim madrassa in Indonesia."

E-mail messages and flyers
In November 2007, The New York Times reported that voters in Iowa were receiving e-mail messages saying that Obama was a Muslim and anti-American. His campaign organization responded with a letter signed by three Iowa ministers, a nun and a church elder, which said, "Senator Obama is a committed Christian who found Christ long before entering politics and has been outspoken about his faith ever since." In the same month, the New York Post reported that flyers repeating the rumor were being put on cars in South Carolina and that other rumors were being spread about other candidates, both Republican and Democratic. That month, the Washington Post also reported that the rumor was still found on the Internet.

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