The Supreme Court has decided to cast aside an appeal to a court case that questions President Obama’s heritage. There has been an ongoing, grass roots movement that has been continually questioning if President Obama is, in fact, a citizen of the United States of America. The appeal that has been turned down was simply the most current one regarding the same issue.
This current court case was brought by Charles Kerchner Jr., from Pennsylvania. He has been interested in forcing President Obama to produce documents such as his birth certificate, and documents regarding his citizenship. Kerchner’s attorney, Mario Apuzzo, has petitioned the Supreme Court with the arguement that President Obama does not fit the official definition of a “natural-born citizen”. Being a “natural-born citizen” is a requirement of anyone who becomes the President of the United States of America.
The Supreme Court has dismissed this case, and previous cases that were similar in argument to this one. President Obama’s birth certificate shows that he was born in 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother was a native of Kansas, which means that she was a citizen of the United States when Barrack Obama was born. His father was born in Kenya, and Kenya was a British Colony at that time.
Kerchner describes himself as a “genetic genealogy pioneer”, (on his blog). He believes that the founding father’s intended the meaning of “natural-born citizen” to mean that a person had not one, but both parents who were citizens of the United States at the time that the child was born. Apparently, the Supreme Court does not agree with Kerchner’s interpretation.
Not too long ago, a genealogist from Ancestry.com discovered that President Obama shares an ancestor with former Alaskan Governer Sarah Palin. Obama and Palin share an ancestor named John Smith, who was a Protestant pastor who lived among the early settlers in Massachusetts. President Obama also shares an ancestor with former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, and former U.S. President George W. Bush. Their common ancestor was named Samuel Hinckley.
Image by dbking on Flickr