Obama's parents marriage ro not
FreedomFirst,
Very interesting discussion and points. While doing research on Hawaiian marriage laws, did you note whether or not federal recognition of a couple as being married would be considered valid in Hawaii, as is another state's recognition of the married couple?
It is my understanding that one or more federal agencies (e.g. IRS) will recognize a couple as being married if they hold themselves out as being married (e.g. filing a joint tax return, signing into a motel as Mr. & Mrs., etc.). This might be an acknowledgment and recognition of Common Law Marriages by the feds.
Question for the inquiring mind: did Dunham or Obama Sr. ever file any tax returns, joint or otherwise? Did they ever hold themselves out as being married, regardless of whether or not any nation's laws recognized the married state?
Side note: I think because of the divorce decree, they must have at some point held themselves out as being married. Does this make Obama Sr. a bigamist?
Obama Jr's birth certificate as it exists in Hawaii may be the only reasonable explanation of what really happened during day one of Obama Jr's life.
We also need to learn what nation Obama considered his own nationality while he was in college. Unfortunately, we don't have access to those records either. Or his DoS travel records, which have apparently been sanitized by one or more interested parties.
I hope we learn the good lesson from this adventure into interesting times not to do this kind of thing again.
Re: Obama's parents marriage ro not
Quote:
Originally Posted by HighlanderJuan
FreedomFirst,
Very interesting discussion and points. While doing research on Hawaiian marriage laws, did you note whether or not federal recognition of a couple as being married would be considered valid in Hawaii, as is another state's recognition of the married couple?
It is my understanding that one or more federal agencies (e.g. IRS) will recognize a couple as being married if they hold themselves out as being married (e.g. filing a joint tax return, signing into a motel as Mr. & Mrs., etc.). This might be an acknowledgment and recognition of Common Law Marriages by the feds.
Good question. Didn't do the research. It's actually got two parts.
#1 How might the federal government regard a "tribal marriage" lacking any paperwork but entered into by a foreigner from Kenya who comes to the U.S. on a student visa? He didn't bring the wife along. He might have had to get special "confirmation paperwork" from Kenya showing her as a spouse if he had brought her into the U.S. to stay together while he was in school. There's a general discussion that seems to point to the Feds wanting paperwork under an older 1860 statute as well as newer statutes and guidelines. It's a minefield of complexity, it seems, with the State Dept. mostly concerned about what American citizens are doing abroad (e.g., getting married or divorced) rather than what a foreign citizen might have done abroad in his home country before showing up here with a visa.
http://travel.state.gov/law/info/marria ... e_641.html
#2 How does the federal government regard common law marriages undertaken domestically? General impression: the feds would probably defer to the states as far as whether there was a marriage under state law. What might be a good litmus test is whether the IRS is currently accepting joint returns from partners in "gay marriages" from the states where they've been recognized by high court decisions; or, whether they accepted such returns from partners during the time that California was pre-Proposition 8. (2007 tax year returns.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by HighlanderJuan
Question for the inquiring mind: did Dunham or Obama Sr. ever file any tax returns, joint or otherwise? Did they ever hold themselves out as being married, regardless of whether or not any nation's laws recognized the married state?
Side note: I think because of the divorce decree, they must have at some point held themselves out as being married. Does this make Obama Sr. a bigamist?
She was a teenage college student who isn't mentioned as having a job although her Social Security Number is traced to State of Washington, as the place of issuance. Back in those days, SSN's weren't issued shortly after birth like they are now; they usually weren't obtained until the teenage years when kids got drivers' licenses and summer jobs. His student visa wouldn't have found him eligible to hold down a job in the U.S. so if he got any jobs at all, to supplement his living allowance, it's likely he was paid in cash and never got a W-2. No Social Security # for him in order to do withholdings, so no need for him to file a tax return at all. In fact, he might have gotten in trouble with the law if he did file a tax return showing he'd been working.
Side note: They told people they had gotten married. The current Representative from Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, was in college with Obama Sr. and counted him among his friends. He said in an interview that he'd been told, by them, that they had eloped to Maui. (For all we know, it might have been a made-up story to everybody, even Ann's parents.) The birth announcement reported a "Mr. and Mrs." and nobody is challenging that newspaper page as forged. If Obama Sr. was a bigamist then it would make the marriage a nullity, and instead of a divorce, an annulment would have been the proper way to go. Except that the lack of paperwork ("tribal marriage") would have created a problem in Hawaii because the lawsuit for annulment would need hearsay evidence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HighlanderJuan
Obama Jr's birth certificate as it exists in Hawaii may be the only reasonable explanation of what really happened during day one of Obama Jr's life.
We also need to learn what nation Obama considered his own nationality while he was in college. Unfortunately, we don't have access to those records either. Or his DoS travel records, which have apparently been sanitized by one or more interested parties.
I hope we learn the good lesson from this adventure into interesting times not to do this kind of thing again.
You're right about the importance of that original certificate. Nothing is really settled unless it's produced. Donofrio says the Certification might be enough if Hawaii stands behind it. I disagree. He's putting all his eggs into the one basket of what FactCheck wrote about the British law "governing" Obama's status.
You're right about the "good lesson" too. The fact that state legislatures are finding bills introduced, to require submission of birth certificates when candidates file their nominating petitions, and that there's a federal bill introduced too, amending the federal elections statutes, suggests that people are waking up to a problem area.