Topeka ? A Kansas House member says he didn’t mean to offend anyone by forwarding an e-mail that says Muslims can’t be good Americans.

Pretty Prairie Republican Joe Seiwert said Thursday that he was simply passing on information he’d received from someone else when he forwarded the e-mail to about 40 people last week.

Seiwert told The Associated Press that he forwarded it using his personal e-mail account.

The unsigned e-mail has been circulating since at least 2006 and says Muslims can’t be good Americans because they owe their allegiance to Islam.

Asked whether he thinks Muslims can be good Americans, Seiwert said he thinks most are trying to be.

Seiwert’s forwarding of the e-mail first became public through a story in The Hutchinson News.