Poe's decision and prohibited the videotaping. On June 7, 2009, Poe signed on as a co-sponsor of H.R. 1503, the bill introduced as a reaction to conspiracy theories which claimed that U.S. President Barack Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen. On July 23, 2009, he appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight in which he claimed that Certifications of Live Birth issued by Hawaii State Department of Health cannot be used to obtain a U.S. passport, which is untrue. His support of H.R. 1503 and public advocacy for it earned him a negative editorial in the Houston Chronicle. In August 2011, AlterNet reported that Poe, along with John Culberson and Michael McCaul, was attempting to remove the right of deceased soldiers' families to choose which prayers, if any, were to be read at a soldier's funeral. The three politicians were said to be attempting to impose Christian ceremonies on the military funerals of everybody who has served in the military, regardless of whether or not the deceased was Christian and with or without the consent of the family of the deceased. The three politicians stated their demands were a response to Veterans Affairs (VA) banning Christian prayers at military funerals. The VA, however, asserted that this claim was "blatantly false" and that VA respects a family's "rights to pray however they choose at our national cemeteries". In 2017, his bill to have Congress monitor religious reform and interpretation in Saudi Arabia aroused international concerns that the United States was behind societal upheavals in that country. Personal life Poe and his wife, Carol, have four children (Kim, Kara, Kurt, and Kellee). Poe announced on July 13, 2016, that he had recently been diagnosed with leukemia and would be seeking treatment at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. In popular culture Poe was interviewed about his controversial creative sentencing practices while still a Texas district judge by Jon Ronson for Ronson's 2015 book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed. In 2011, Poe gave a speech on the house floor concerning excessive spending by the Justice Department on refreshments served at conferences at the Capitol Hilton. He expressed significant disapproval that muffins apparently costing $16 each were served at the conferences. The speech was made notable by his humorous opening line, "Madame Speaker, do you know the muffin man?" The speech was further popularized by his inclusion in a Songify the News