Wright Criticizes Those Who Think Obama is Muslim

President Barack Obama's former pastor is coming to his defense and attacking those who falsely call the president a Muslim.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered a fiery sermon Sunday at New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Ark., defending Millennium's pastor who has also come under criticism for questioning the Iraq war. Wright said:

"Go after the military mind-set ... and the enemy will come after you with everything," Wright told the packed church. "He will surround you with sycophants who will criticize you and ostracize you and put you beyond the pale of hope and say 'you ain't really a Baptist' and say 'the president ain't really a Christian, he's a Muslim. There ain't no American Christian with a name like Barack Hussein,'" he added.

Obama and Wright have not had a relationship since the 2008 election, when Wright's controversial comments on some topics became public.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye... and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back in to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," Wright said in a clip from one sermon.

Obama did not abandon Wright but made a well-received speech about race. Afterward, Wright came out and made more controversial comments, and the Obamas withdrew their membership from the church of the man who married them, baptized their children and was very influential in Obama's development.

Maybe this is a sign that Wright realizes he should have left well enough alone after Obama's race speech.



Amazingly, a decent percentage of Americans believe that Obama is Muslim. Eighteen percent of those in a recent Newsweek poll thought Obama was Muslim, an increase from 11 percent during a poll last year.

That is frightening given that Obama is a Christian. Another 43 percent of Americans did not know Obama's religion.

But why is being a Muslim such a slur?

There are radical practitioners of Islam who commit evil acts just like there radical practitioners of Christianity who commit evil acts.

There is no legitimate reason to think Obama is a Muslim other than the crazy rantings of people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. But these crazy rumors are hard to dispel. Obama's birth certificate has been made available to the public, but there are still a considerable number of people who follow the Birther Movement and question Obama's place of birth.

"The facts are the facts," Obama said in an interview.

"I'm not gonna be worrying too much about whatever rumors are floating on out there," Obama said Sunday. "If I spend all my time chasing after that, then I wouldn't get much done."

Obama contributed the rumors to "a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly."

Rumors asserting that Obama is an illegitimate president or lying about his religion are incredibly dangerous, because they may spur mentally unstable people into action.

Despite what you may think of Wright, he's correct that those who call Obama Muslim are using it as a slur.