ArcaMax

Oh really? For a "religious leader," it seems to me, questioning other people's religious faith is part of the job description.

More important, if anyone has quite publically judged other people's religious faith with willful abandon, it is Donald Trump, especially when talking about President Barack Obama.

Remember how Trump became a leading "birther" in 2011, claiming that Obama might secretly be a Muslim -- a claim from which Trump more recently has backed away.

"He doesn't have a birth certificate," Trump told Fox News. "He may have one, but there's something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don't know. Maybe he doesn't want that."

Maybe, maybe, maybe. That's a great word to throw around when you want to raise suspicions about somebody without a shred of hard evidence.

Those are the classic questions raised by demagogues when they want to smear someone without evidence.

Sometimes all you have to do is nod your head when somebody else spouts lunacy, as when Trump let a questioner in his audience at a Rochester, N.H., town hall rattle on: "We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims. You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American."

Trump's failure to correct the man was conspicuous. "We need this question," he said.

But when "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert asked Trump a week later whether he believed Obama was born in the United States, which he was, Trump said only, "I don't talk about it anymore."

Yet as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz began to rise ahead of Trump with evangelical Christians in Iowa polls in December, Trump suddenly wanted to talk about Cruz' religious faith.

"Just remember this," Trump hinted to a rally crowd, "you gotta remember, in all fairness, to the best of my knowledge, not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba, OK?"

And just a week before the pope's remarks, Trump tweeted, "How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?"

Yes, Trump is a great respecter of other people's religious faiths -- as long as they stay behind him in the polls.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.