The subject line of the message in my e-mail marked it as obvious spam, but it came from someone I knew, so I opened it, curious about what I’d find.

According to the message, “they” were out to stop religious programming, to keep Joel Osteen and his fellow TV minister from broadcasting the Good News to America.

I read on, hoping against hope that this wasn’t what I thought it was. That maybe someone had come up with a new dodge, but no, the message reported the same old claim that a petition had been filed with the FCC to stop religious programming on the public airwaves.

This particular urban legend stretches way back, 30 years or more. Originally the supposed petitioner was Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the famous atheist who used to be blamed for all imagined attacks on Christianity. Until she disappeared and was declared dead.

Then the petition was credited to the atheist organization she left behind.

If you have a spare 20 minutes or so, visit the FCC’s Web site and do a search for O’Hair or religious programming and petition, or some such combination, and you’ll find all the FCC’s materials on the subject.

They’ll tell you the rumor is all wrong.

Urban legend Web sites debunk the rumor as well. A couple of times in the past, I’ve called the FCC — and this back in the day when it cost me long distance charges to make the call — and been told by a friendly but tired-sounding employee there was no truth to the rumor. I did that so I could tell friends and church members that the FCC told me the rumor was false.

Didn’t matter. One woman who was spreading the rumor challenged me when I told her it was false and how I knew.

“When did you call?” she said. About a year before, I told her.

“Well, a petition could have been filed since you talked to them. Besides, how do you know they were telling you the truth?”

No amount of explanation was good enough for her and never would be.

Another rumor making the rounds these days has the potential for long-term repetition.

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t receive an e-mail telling me that Barack Obama can’t be president because he’s not a natural born citizen. Often the e-mail includes a prefatory note demanding to know why we don’t report this earth-shattering story.

I’ll tell you why. Because it’s not true and that reality has been reported multiple times in several media outlets.

The Supreme Court became involved in the story recently when it refused to consider several appeals of lawsuits first trying to stop Obama’s election, then challenging the validity of that election, then trying to stop the Electoral College from exercising its function of actually electing him to be president.

The court refused the appeals because, it said, the cases had no merit.

I doubt that will put an end to the matter. I expect to continue to receive e-mails on the subject, but like the O’Hair rumor, it will morph into a new form that will allow it to stay alive.

Probably what we’ll hear will be that Obama was illegally elected, that it somehow will be because of some conspiracy by the Democrats, and that the liberal, mainstream media covered the story up.

Yeah, and Tinkerbell is a real fairy who visits children at night to transport them to Neverland. If we could only convince those darned Disney people to admit the truth.

These kinds of rumors persist in the face of the truth because people want to believe them. The rumors support a belief they hold to — for some Christians that they are under siege and for conservatives that their worst fears have come true.

I’d like to believe that these rumors will die off some day, that truth will prevail, but I doubt it. The O’Hair rumor is already older than most of the people I work with, and as long as it can be wrapped in new packaging, it will continue to appear. The adage about the birth rate of suckers may well be right.

Michael O’Connor can be reached at editor@trcle.com.