Obama: I've Never Been A Muslim

Obama takes issue with report identifying him as Muslim

By Helen Kennedy

New York Daily News

(MCT)

NEW YORK - Barack Obama wants everyone to know: I am not a Muslim!

Under a headline reading "Just because the L.A. Times writes it, does not make it true," the Obama campaign took issue Thursday with a story that said the Illinois Democrat attended services at a mosque and "bowed to Allah" when he was a small boy in Indonesia.

"Barack Obama is not and has never been a Muslim," the campaign stressed. "Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ."

Obama, who lived in Jakarta between the ages of 6 and 10 with his mother and Indonesian stepfather, has said he was raised in a secular household and attended both Catholic and Muslim schools. Indonesia's population is mostly Muslim.

His spokesman, Bill Burton, said he didn't think the campaign statement was too strongly worded.

"As folks get to know Sen. Obama, it's important that people get the facts straight," he said. "Sen. Obama has been very clear and direct about who he is and where he comes from."

His campaign reacted just as strongly to a story aired on Fox News in January that falsely said he attended a radical Islamic madrassa, or religious school, as a child.

A Diageo poll last month found that 6 percent of voters think Obama is Muslim.

Meanwhile, in horse race polls, a new Harris survey found Obama closing on Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y..

Clinton still leads Obama 15 percent to 12 percent among all adults, but her lead is down from 20 percent to 10 percent last month.

A Time magazine poll found Clinton's lead over Obama narrowed to eight points among Democrats, down from a 12-point lead late last month.

---

© 2007, New York Daily News.

Visit the Daily News online at http://www.nydailynews.com