You have raised a lot of really intriguing questions.

I wish I had enough time to address them but, alas, I’ll have to put them on hold until tomorrow.

There are lots of rumors circulating the Net about why the birth certificate has not been released. To me, if there is nothing to hide, it should be released.

The campaign has said that they don’t want his Social Security number to be released. OK…. 1)It won’t be on there because when he was born those numbers weren’t assigned until much later in life and 2)If there is info on there that is sensitive, black it out with a Sharpie marker.

Lots of speculation regarding the marriage (or lack of) of his parents as well. Even Obama has said that there is no record of it.

I’ll get my source materials together for you.

Gotta run now. More later.

As I read it, assuming he was born in Hawaii, if his parents weren’t married, he’s covered. If they were married, he has a problem. Could they be married? My understanding is that his father had a legal wife in Kenya. Polygamy is legal in Kenya. Could he have legally married Obama’s mother in the US? Maybe he’s a natural born citizen by reason of illegitimacy. Now wouldn’t that be rich?

And I still don’t know who is responsible to ascertain that a person is legally qualified to be president…I’ve read that they just have to submit candidacy papers and swear that everything they say is true. No legal verification of citizenship required. So who checks?

Actually, I’m a little confused myself, and I don’t know your sources so I don’t know if mine conflict or not! However…I used two sources…first the comment from MM’s blog that started me looking for this info:

“On June 10th, 2008 at 8:37 am, legendx3 said:

Barack Obama is not legally a U.S. Natural-born citizen according to the law on the books at the time of his birth, which falls between “December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986? . Presidential office requires a natural-born citizen if the child was not born to two U.S. Citizen parents, which of course is what exempts John McCain though he was born in the Panama Canal. US Law very clearly stipulates: “…If only one parent was a U.S. Citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16.” Barack Obama’s father was not a U.S. Citizen and Obama’s mother was only 18 when Obama was born, which means though she had been a U.S. Citizen for 10 years, (or citizen perhaps because of Hawai’i being a territory) the mother fails the test for being so for at least 5 years **prior to** Barack Obama’s birth, but *after* age 16. It doesn’t matter *after* . In essence, she was not old enough to qualify her son for automatic U.S. Citizenship. At most, there were only 2 years elapsed since his mother turned 16 at the time of Barack Obama’s birth when she was 18 in Hawai’i. His mother would have needed to have been 16+5= 21 years old, at the time of Barack Obama’s birth for him to have been a natural-born citizen. As aformentioned, she was a young college student at the time and was not. Barack Obama was already 3 years old at that time his mother would have needed to have waited to have him as the only U.S. Cizen parent. Obama instead should have been naturalized, but even then, that would still disqualify him from holding the office.

*** Naturalized citizens are ineligible to hold the office of President. *** Though Barack Obama was sent back to Hawaii at age 10, all the other info does not matter because his mother is the one who needed to have been a U.S. Citzen for 10 years prior to his birth on August 4, 1961, with 5 of those years being after age 16. Further, Obama may have had to have remained in the country for some time to protect any citizenship he would have had, rather than living in Indonesia. Now you can see why Obama’s aides stopped his speech about how we technically have more than 50 states, because it would have led to this discovery. This is very clear cut and a blaring violation of U.S. Election law. I think the Gov. Of California would be very insterested in knowing this if Obama were elected President without being a natural-born U.S. Citizen, and it would set precedence.”

I followed that up with looking at the following sites:
http://www.visalaw.com/05jan1/2jan105.html

This site says that the 5 year requirement is after the age of 14. Someone supplied this other site:

http://immigration.findlaw.com/immigration/immigration-citizenship-naturalization/immigration-citizenship-naturalization-did-you-know

which supplies the 16 yr age limit. The law was changed in 1986 to allow natural born citizenship to any person born in the USA regardless of the status of their parents.

What confuses me most is why Obama doesn’t release his birth certificate, and secondly, who is resonsible for determining whether he meets the citizenship requirements. Have you any idea?

Not quite correct.

If Obama was indeed born in Hawaii, he is a citizen. (If you have conflicting sources on this let me know.)

However, if Obama was born in Kenya to an American citizen (mother) and a foreigner (father) then there are requirements which the American parent must meet in order for Obama to be considered to be a citizen.

In order for Obama to be considered to be a citizen under the Kenyan-birth scenario then his mother would have had to have lived in the US for four years following her 16th birthday.

That, of course, would be impossible because she was only 18 when she gave birth.

Questions were raised about McCain’s eligibility as he was born in Panama Canal Zone while his father was serving in the military. Rather than raise the question in a court of law, congress passed a resolution recognizing that he was in fact a natural born citizen.

At least theoretically, Obama may not be qualified to be president. He may not be a natural born citizen as is required by the Constitution. Theoretically, he was born in Hawaii, but because of the law at the time and the age of his mother at the time of his birth, it’s possible he’s not legally a natural born citizen. It’s also theorized that he may not have been born in Hawaii, but in Kenya. Hawaii doesn’t permit release of birth certificates as public information and so far Obama has refused to release his birth certificate. Reason for refusal is unknown.

If Obie is disqualified in the fashion that I suspect he is disqualified then no Congressional resolution will make a difference.

The resolution that was passed on McCain’s behalf was simply ceremonial.