Identity crisis -- UPDATE: CASE CLOSED!

Controversy over Obama's birth certificate continues. A reader says that my earlier piece (which, frankly, should have settled the matter) has received a rebuttal. Can anyone provide a link? Is the rebuttal well-founded, or is it just blinkered gain-saying?

That said, I must now correct an earlier stance.

Previous posts averred that under American law, Barack Obama would be a natural born citizen even if the birth occurred overseas. That statement was based on SEC. 301. [8 U.S.C. 1401], which you can find here.

(Yes, this is going to be one of those ghastly legal posts. I'll make it as painless as possible.)

The law states that a person is a citizen if he or she was born outside the U.S. even if only one parent was a citizen...

who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years...

This was not the way the law read in 1961, when Our Savior had his glorious nativity. The 1961 law does indeed make his citizenship questionable -- if he were born outside U.S. borders. However, the current law says...

This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date...

Case closed? I had thought so.

But a reader has pointed out that I may have mis-read the law by gerrymandering it. That all-important proviso may apply not to this whole paragraph, but to an immediately preceding sentence, which I had originally left out because it seemed irrelevant.

Damn. There's no escaping it -- we simply must look at the whole thing.

Yes, I'm going to ask you to read legalese. On a bloody Sunday morning. A thousand apologies -- but what must be done, must be done. In order to make the text clearer, let's break it up into parts and present it in a more poetic vein...

(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents

one of whom is an alien,

and the other a citizen of the United States

who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years:

Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government

or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (59 Stat. 669; 22 U.S.C. 288) by such citizen parent,

or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person

(A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or

(B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act,

may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph.

This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date;

The question for today, my friends, comes down to this: Does the "This proviso" bit refer to all of section (g), or does it refer only to the irrelevant military service stuff that comes after "Provided"?

If the latter, and if Obi was born outside the U.S. -- then we really do have a potential problem.

Let me be clear: So far, I've seen no evidence -- none whatsoever -- that the glorious nativity occurred in any place but Hawaii.

TexasDarlin has suggested that Ann Dunham's strange trip to Mercer Island -- a mere three weeks after the glorious nativity -- may indicate that the Lightbringer was born in Canada. I can think of no possible reason why she would go to Canada or to any other country to give birth.

TD is on firmer ground when she discusses another anomaly:

The US Public Records Index via Ancestry.com, as well as other sources, say she was born Sept. 1971.

BUT, there are also several references, such as this Wikipedia report, that say Maya Soertoro was born on Aug. 15, 1970.

To buttress the August 15 claim, a TD commenter named Snoopy (isn't that cute?) cites a site called An American ExPat in Southeast Asia. That author has spent the last twenty years in Indonesia, and has done some good detective work in his attempt to track Our Savior's family during His Glorious Sojourn in that nation.

Interesting stuff, to be sure. Alas, I've seen no mention of the August 15, 1970 birth date anywhere on the ExPat's blog.

("Maya" means "illusion," incidentally. Just thought I'd mention that.)

UPDATE -- CASE CLOSED: A reader named citizen k has found a section of the law which settles the matter once and for all. Even if he had been born in another country, Barack Obama would still be a natural born citizen of the United States.

As you will recall, Michelle Obama recently confirmed that her husband was born out of wedlock. The following law therefore applies:

8 USC 1409(c), Children Born Out of Wedlock:

(c) Notwithstanding the provision of subsection (a) of this section, a person born, after December 23, 1952, outside the United States and out of wedlock shall be held to have acquired at birth the nationality status of his mother, if the mother had the nationality of the United States at the time of such person’s birth, and if the mother had previously been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year.

And that's it and that's it and that's it.