In the letter above, Ms. Lyday writes, “Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country?”
President Obama was not the first US president to make that statement. This distinction would go to John Adams, who signed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797. Article 11 of this treaty states, “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”.