(Image Credit: Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

FOURCHON, La. - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is amping up his language on President Obama's faith and his relationship with Muslims. Gingrich told ABC News Friday that that he takes the president at his word that he's a Christian, but finds it "very bizarre" that Obama is "desperately concerned to apologize to Muslim religious fanatics."

Gingrich said the president's apology to the Afghan president for the burning Korans by U.S. soldiers happened last month "while they are killing young Americans," referring to the two Americans killed during protests over the burned books. Gingrich said at the same time, the administration is "going to war against the Catholic Church and against every right-to- life Protestant organization in the country."

Asked by a member of the press if it concerns him that a large portion of the electorate believes Obama is a Muslim, Gingrich replied, "It should bother the president."

"Why does the president behave the way that people would think that? You have to ask why would they believe that? It's not because they're stupid. It's because they watch the kind of things I just described to you," Gingrich said.

Gingrich said Thursday that "Obama's Muslim friends" would not be reported on by the "elite media," in a radio interview with Sandy Rios. Gingrich was asked about Rios called the Washington Post's "two page" report on Rick Santorum's ties to Catholic organization, Opus Dei. Gingrich used the question to say that the elite media was protecting Obama from any religious scrutiny.

"You have to understand that the elite media is in the tank for Obama. They are going to do anything that helps re-elect Obama," Gingrich said. "Do you think you are going to see two pages on Obama's Muslim friends? Or two pages on the degree to which Obama is consistently apologizing to Islam while attacking the Catholic Church?"

On Wednesday, in Port Charles, La., a man asked Gingrich a question and stated that Obama was a Muslim and a student of Saul Alinsky. Gingrich did not correct the man and later said in an interview with Fox News that he didn't "have an obligation to go around and correct every single voter about every single topic. I also didn't agree with him."