Except there
is evidence that he's not a natural born citizen. Maybe there's not enough evidence to "prove" it to you, but there is enough evidence for a reasonable judge to allow a lawsuit to go forward. You may not understand how the burden of proof works in these situations. Many people mistakenly think that all questions of law require a "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden of proof. That is not true. In civil cases the burden of proof is preponderance of the evidence. And sometimes the burden of proof
shifts to the defendant.
For example, lets say if someone filed a civil lawsuit asking for a declaratory judgment that Obama is not a natural born citizen and hence not eligible to be president. The first thing that would happen is Obama's lawyers would file a motion to dismiss. Motions to dismiss are only supposed to be granted if there is no disputed fact or law that could possibly lead to the other side winning. The burden of proof is on the side making the motion (the defense side). If both sides agreed Obama's parents were Americans then the motion to dismiss would have to be granted because it wouldn't matter if he was born in Kenya or Hawaii. But since both of his parents weren't American, and due to the unique circumstances surrounding his birth (I posted that earlier), it's not a slam dunk case that he is America. Plus there are the statements by his grandmother that he was born in Kenya along with various newspaper accounts that he was born in Kenya to consider. During the motion to dismiss phase all evidence is looked at in the light most favorable to the non moving party. In other words any judge adjudicating this who actually followed the law would have to assume that grandma Obama wasn't lying or crazy and the newspaper reports were not made up. So it's
very unlikely that such a case would be thrown out on motion to dismiss if not for the highly politically charged nature of the lawsuit. (Sometimes judges ignore the law for the sake of political expediency).
If a motion to dismiss fails then you go into something called "discovery". In other words each side gets to demand that the other side turn over everything and the other side
must turn over everything unless it has a REALLY good reason not to do so. Simply saying "well other people don't have to turn over their birth certificates" is
NOT a really good reason. Other people are not embroiled in a similar lawsuit under similar circumstances. Ask yourself this question.
Why did Bill Clinton have to testify about whether or not he had sex with Monica Lewinski? People generally don't have to talk about their private sexual lives. The reason Clinton did was because that was material to the sexual harassment lawsuit. The same is true here. People generally don't have to turn over their birth certificates. But only if it is material to the lawsuit.
If Obama can prove that he's a natural born citizen without turning over his birth certificate than he shouldn't have to. But under the circumstances it doesn't appear to me that he can. There is a report that Obama's half sister, who was born in Indonesia, has a Hawaiian certificate of live birth just like Obama. If that's true and/or if it's generally true that you can get a certificate of live birth without being a natural born citizen then Obama has not proven himself to be one. So yes, under these circumstances Obama could, and possibly should have to turn over his birth certificate. That doesn't mean that every president has to turn over his birth certificate any more than every president should have to say whether or not they had sex with Monica Lewinski or anybody else. And it's not a race thing. (I know you haven't said that, but others have). If Jesse Jackson had been elected president this wouldn't have been an issue because both of his parents were citizens and his mom was not out of the country near the time of his birth.
One other thing to consider on burden of proof.
Say if the person CHALLENGING Obama's birth is the defendant? That already happened with a U.S. soldier challenging his deployment to Afghanistan based on the assumption that Obama is not eligible to be president. What happened in that case? The soldiers order were changed mooting the case.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=104009
But people could file all sorts of lawsuits challenging all sorts of presidential orders base on the belief that Obama is not eligible to be president. If that happened at some point Obama would have to prove he legitimacy or risk becoming even less effective than he already is.
I hope this helps.
