Editorial: Preferring facts to fears on President Obama's religion

A decent percentage of the nation's population is dipping into the goofy juice again.

According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, some 18 percent of Americans believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim, up significantly since his inauguration. Only 34 percent picked the correct answer, identifying the president as the Christian he has long insisted he is. A full 43 percent of Americans haven't a clue where he worships. Few modern presidents have spoken so openly about their private religious beliefs, or felt a need to.

Here we thought the birthers - those who don't believe Obama was born in the United States - had cornered the market on kooky. Now they're getting a run for their money. No doubt there's some overlap here.

No one can blame the president's tolerance for the Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York for these numbers, as the poll was conducted before that issue grew legs. We suppose some continue to fault him for his name, which he did not give himself. Of course, some wouldn't be satisfied unless he managed to work Jesus' name into every other sentence; likely a few in that camp would turn the U.S. into a theocracy, if they could. Extremists come in every stripe. Some of this nonsense is fueled by irresponsible politicians and media figures looking to cash in; they could say the sun sets in the east without getting any challenge from the true believers who tune in to them. Based on his performances of the last couple years, little about Newt Gingrich is good for the country.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that the president was Muslim. The proper response to that would be: So what?

Article VI, Section 3, of the U.S. Constitution is quite clear on this matter: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the Unites States." Alas, some folks love their Constitution, and live to cite it, until they're actually asked to follow it. We'd say that Constitution has served the nation well, misunderstood and misquoted though it often is.

No one is obligated to like every occupant of the White House. Certainly there are Americans who object to this one, many even for reasons of policy that are more or less legitimate. This issue - we hesitate to even call it that, so manufactured is it - is not among them. Others so despise this president, whatever their motivation, that they'll grasp at practically anything to discredit him. They're actually discrediting themselves, diminishing their own arguments.

Fortunately, countless Americans of faith do not subscribe to any of this silliness. Unfortunately, the irrationality that seems to be gaining a toehold in parts of this country, the eagerness to betray fundamental American values, the willingness to condemn on the scantest of evidence, the surrender of independent thought to the mindlessness of the thundering herd are ... well, depressing, for lack of a better word. Hey, they read it on the Internet, where all information is equal, right? It does not speak well of 21st-century America, so far.

By the way, of the nation's 44 presidents, about a quarter of them have been Episcopalian, followed by Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Unitarians. Though Catholicism is the single largest religious denomination in America, there has been but one Roman Catholic president - John F. Kennedy - and it was a big deal at the time, even in places like Peoria. Kennedy ran against a Quaker in Richard Nixon. (By the way, the Jewish faith is yet to be represented in the Oval Office.) Ultimately this blessedly secular government and nation survived every last one of them.

For what it's worth, a fair number of presidents had ambiguous religious affiliations. Abraham Lincoln often tops the list of the nation's greatest leaders and could quote Scripture with the best of them, but his spiritual allegiances, while disputed, were generally described as complicated, skeptical of organized religion, and evolving over time and personal circumstance. In any event, he never joined a church. How'd he get away with that? Feel free to take a crack at that one, conspiracy theorists.

The Journal Star of Peoria, Ill.