It's become natural to seize on polls such as 'X believe Obama is a muslim' to pour scorn on anti-obama voters, but as this article points out it's an irrational leap of logic to claim that ignorance in one area (knowing he's a Christian) means ignorance in all other areas. Indeed as this article points out, it's more coherent to think that initial rejection of Obama (whether based on policy or person) leads to buying into the more zany criticisms of him . Ironically the basis for liberal disgust at such conspiracy theories is they are irrelevant attacks on the person, not the policies, and yet in grasping with such glee on polls showing support for such theories, they are in fact doing the exact same - judging the voters on irrelevant beliefs and dismissing any other views they might have. Glasshouses and stones come to mind.
Liberal conviction affirmed by polling about faith!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/14/obama-muslim-alabama-republicans-poll
Though this of course is not to mean that all tangential beliefs are irrelevant when it comes to politics. For example a recent poll found that "revealed that one in five Alabamians and more than one in four Mississippians believe interracial marriage should be illegal." (quote from this article). Such racist views really are relevant to the political process, since it is not illogical to think that someone who doesn't think black people should be allowed marry whites, might also think they shouldn't be leading white people. Not all prejudices are determining, but some indeed are...
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