On Birtherism

[luagha]

We begin with the first crux of the biscuit - the definition of 'natural-born citizen.' Nothing has been definitively judged on this exact case nor will the Supreme Court make a statement until one member of a major party brings it up against another member of a major party. Several other cases touch vaguely upon it, like the cases involving

Comments

[luckymarty]

Absent a compelling contrary argument about historical understanding of the phrase's meaning, I would say that "natural-born citizen" = "citizen who did not gain citizenship after birth."

You are correct that dual citizenship is irrelevant: U.S. laws consistently ignore it. Under U.S. law, either you're a U.S. citizen or you aren't, and it makes no difference to that whether other countries think you're one of their citizens or not. Under current Supreme Court rulings (which I find problematic), even naturalizing in another country does not affect your U.S. citizenship status unless you intended to give up citizenship by doing so.

The laws about citizenship at birth have changed several times, but were as you describe between 12/24/52 and 11/14/86. In the spirit of completeness, I will note that the rules were different at that point for children born in and out of wedlock: perhaps surprisingly, they were actually more generous to the latter, and would have required the U.S. citizen mother to have resided in the U.S. for only one year prior to the child's birth. This has no bearing on the two cases mentioned, of course (though I wouldn't be surprised to learn there are people claiming Obama's parents weren't really married, I've never run into them.)

[luagha]

Actually, since you mention it - they claim that Obama's father was already married in a foreign country and his marriage to Miss Dunham was bigamist and therefore invalid.