Birthers Also Claim That Marco Rubio Is Not A Natural Born Citizen. Do You Cons Agree With Them Too?

Activists known as ‘birthers,’ who still question President Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship, are focusing on Sen. Marco Rubio, saying he’s not a natural born citizen.
WASHINGTON — Unable to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president, rigid followers of the Constitution have turned their attention to another young, charismatic politician many think could one day occupy the White House.
The birthers are focusing on U.S. Sen Marco Rubio, the budding Republican star from Florida.
“It’s nothing to do with him personally. But you can’t change the rules because you like a certain person. Then you have no rules,” said New Jersey lawyer Mario Apuzzo.
Forget about the alleged Photoshopped birth certificates; the activists are not challenging whether Rubio was born in Miami. Rather, they say Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution which says “no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
The rub is that “natural born citizen” was never defined.
The birthers rely on writings at the time of the formation of the republic and references in court cases since then to contend that “natural born” means a person born to U.S. citizens. Rubio was born in 1971 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, his office said, but his parents did not become citizens until 1975.
“Marco Rubio was born a Cuban citizen via his parents,” screams a headline on a blog by birther Charles Kerchner, who obtained copies of the naturalization petitions by Rubio’s parents in May, igniting talk that is spreading across the Web.
Kerchner said Rubio is no different from Obama, who even though he was born in Hawaii (which he doubts), was not born to two U.S. citizens. Obama’s father was a Kenyan national. The birthers say Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose parents are from India and were not citizens at the time of his birth, is also unqualified.
Rubio, whose national ascent has been propelled by a tea party that demands absolute fealty to the Constitution, shrugged off the issue.
“The price of our freedom and our liberty is that people can go out and spend a lot of time on stuff like this,” he said. “For us, the more important thing is to focus on our job.”
While Rubio denies higher ambitions, Republicans are salivating for him to join the ticket in 2012 and many think he will run for president in the future. What seems a fringe issue today could blow up, like it did for Obama.
“We need the court to finally adjudicate this issue, who is a natural born citizen,” said Orly Taitz, a California dentist and lawyer and the most prominent birther. Taitz has a lawsuit in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the authenticity of the long-form birth certificate Obama released in late April in an attempt to quell a growing firestorm. The suit also seeks clarity on Article 2 language.
Taitz said in an interview Wednesday that she believes Rubio is ineligible to be president, though several times resisted answering a “hypothetical.”
Birthers rely on various passages to back up their argument. One of them is the treatise The Law of Nations by Swiss philosopher Emer de Vattel, which they say influenced the founding fathers. “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens,” Vattel wrote.
They also cite the U.S. Supreme Court, which in the 1875 case Minor v. Happersett, used the term “natural born citizen” in reference to people who were born in the United States, of U.S.-citizen parents.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/19/2462473/birthers-ask-is-marco-rubio-eligible.html#storylink=cpy