I've already aired my lack of support for Barack Obama, so don't take this as any sort of endorsement or defense of him.

Obama's presence in the Presidential race has allowed the worst aspects of racism to rise to the surface in our national discourse. Mitt Romney's presence has also helped stoke the fires of bigotry, but I'd say that Obama is getting at least twice the lumps that Romney is. The difference is that while Republican voters may be murmuring about Romney being a Mormon, they're not falsely accusing him of being one, and they're not clamoring to bomb yet another Mormon country.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is being accused of being a Muslim. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Muslim, but the nature of the accusations is particularly disturbing. I've seen this posted hundreds of times:

q. Is Barack Obama a Muslim man?
a. Yes, His father was a Muslim. Muslim's sons are Muslims for life.

Cue the spittake. The sons of Muslims are Muslims themselves... for life?

It's not so much the attack on Obama that bothers me here, it's the implied assault of the very validity of Christianity that these (ostensibly "Christian") posters are making. They are saying, in essence, that Islam is so gripping, so compelling, that simply having 23 chromosomes in common with a man who was Muslim is enough to make any man Muslim for life, and Christianity simply can't compete with that. Obama's acceptance of the Christian faith is simply a sham due to his absentee father's Islamic sperm, because there's no possibly way that the awesome power of Jesus Christ could possibly overcome it.

Do these people realize that their argument effectively castrates their own religion?

-pb