Wikipedia misleads, smears about Obama citizenship "conspiracy theory"

Wikipedia has a page called "Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories" (en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories) that smears those who have questions about where Obama was born and whether he's eligible to be president as fringe conspiracy theorists. And, as will be shown below, that page has been grossly misleading visitors about this issue for almost two and a half months: since around Christmas, anyone who's relied on the article has been misled. (Note: see the Obama citizenship page for our extensive coverage of this issue.)

The misleading passage is the following; note that there are probably other misleading statements on the page and if so they may be discussed in future posts:

People such as Alan Keyes who are questioning Obama's birth location point to a Hawaii statute that allows births to be registered for children born out of state; however, that law was only passed in 1982 (21 years after Obama's birth registration) and its text does not indicate that out-of-state births will be listed with a Hawaiian place of birth.

That's the form that's been on the page since about January 20; earlier forms were similar and are included below.

Why is that misleading? Primarily because the year when the law was passed does not matter. The law is S. 338-17.8 (cached here), with the parts relevant to the current discussion bolded:

...Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child...

The Territory of Hawaii was dissolved in 1959. If this law had been intended to only include children born in 1982 or later, would they have referred to the "Territory" of Hawaii? Clearly, this law was intended to include those born before 1982 as well. If you can find even a single lawyer disputing that, leave a comment with their name.

Yet, that's not the impression that the Wikipedia passage gives. The Wikipedia passage is just as clearly intended to lead the visitor to believe that the Hawaiian law couldn't apply to Obama because he was born 21 years before the law was put on the books. Yet, it doesn't matter: Obama could have been born 31 years before the law was put on the books (i.e., in the Territory of Hawaii) and he'd still be covered under the law.

Necessary disclaimer: the above doesn't mean that Obama took advantage of that law. It just means that it's a possibility.

The Wikipedia quote above also contains two other misleading statements:
1. What "birth registration"? Where is the definitive proof that Obama's birth was registered when he was born?
2. The fact that "[the law's] text does not indicate that out-of-state births will be listed with a Hawaiian place of birth" does not matter. That's presumably an invalid attempt to legitimize the picture of a certification of live birth on Obama's website. Yet, that picture has never been verified by the issuing authority or by any other government agency. It probably isn't fake, but we do not know that for certain. Until its contents are verified by a government agency, it's just a picture on a webpage.

PRIOR VERSIONS:
Until about mid-January, this was the version of the paragraph above:

People such as Alan Keyes who are questioning Obama’s birth location point to a Hawaii statute that allows births to be registered for children born out of state; however, that law was only passed in 1982, 21 years after Obama's birth registration.

Before December 23, 2008, it had this version (or wasn't there):

People such as Alan Keyes who are questioning Obama’s birth location point to a Hawaii statute that allows births to be registered for children born out of state, a law passed in 1982.

The December 23, 2008/ 15:27 revision from user "Kwdavids" changed the previous version to this:

People such as Alan Keyes who are questioning Obama’s birth location point to a Hawaii statute that allows births to be registered for children born out of state; however, that law was only passed in 1982, 21 years after Obama's birth registration.

"Kwdavids" annotated that change with "Reworded section on Alan Keyes claims to make it clearer. This does not change the meaning." Yes, indeed.

UPDATE: To be precise, it's a "Certification of Live Birth", not a "Certificate of Live Birth".

Mon, 03/09/2009 - 22:38 · · Importance: 9