You know, it’s funny, some white folks will look for any convenient excuse to mask their racism and xenophobia. A few weeks back, I posted how CNN host Glenn Beck attempted to question the patriotism of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim congressman (a black man from Detroit who converted to Islam).

More recently, I have been reading conservative hit pieces on Barack Obama. In a nutshell, they are attacking him for his name and the fact that his father was a Muslim. Obama identifies himself as a Christian but, that is not stopping the right-wingnuts from attacking him.

The latest piece of trash comes from Debbie Schlussel, a blogger of obvious agenda, who says that, since Obama’s dad was a Muslim, Obama must be too.

However, look at what’s really going on here. Over the last several years, the words “terrorist” and “Muslim” have been used interchangeably. What is being said here is that, if Obama were to become President, or even Vice-President, we would somehow be electing a terrorist or terrorist-sympathizer into the White House.

But, let’s strip away one more layer here. It would be politically-devastating in this day and age to say, “You don’t want to be the first people to elect a Black President, do you?” You see, if Obama identifies himself as Christian then, the only surface issue to take up with him is that he’s black. But, the righties don’t want to say that. So, we look at family history and smear him because his father had a different religion. His father, as far as anyone knows, had no ties with extremism, as most of the world’s 1 billion Muslims do not.

Now, if we are going to evaluate people on the basis of their parents’ affiliations (again, there was no negative history associated with the elder Obama) then, explain to me how these same folks justify their support of George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush. Why do I say that? You see, the grandfather of our current President, former U.S Senator Prescott Bush, had his company’s assets seized in 1942 for knowingly doing business with the Nazis. Grandfather Bush as a banking director and board member of a front company, helped keep the Nazi war machine moving.

So, Grandfather Bush was one of the people that kept money flowing to a group of people who, literally, exterminated millions of people. But, his posterity were allowed to go on to be Presidents?

Now, contrast that to Presidential hopeful Barack Obama. His father has no such dubious past. His father was, quite simply, a Muslim, like anyone else born into his region of Kenya. The elder Obama was Muslim because he was born and raised that way, much like most Christians here. There was no evidence of extremism on his part but, I guess the word “muslim” is enough for the xenophobes.

Look, I was raised Christian and, I guess, I still consider myself so. But, that doesn’t mean that I need someone to share my religious views to lead my country. In fact, Article VI of the U.S. Constitution spells this out clearly:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

However, let’s be honest. It’s not the religion test that Obama’s not passing, it’s the color test.

Edit: it has come to my attention that Obama’s father wasn’t even a practicing Muslim, he was an agnostic. So, it was Obama’s grandfather who was the practicing Muslim. Obama’s stepfather, an Indonesian, was a non-practicing Muslim. Not that any of the above should matter but, this further debilitates Debbie Schlussel ’s already-weak argument.

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