Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 June 29

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June 29

Senator Duckworth as VP

One of the current discussions/debates in the news is who Joe Biden will choose as his running mate. One person suggested was Senator Tammy Duckworth. My question is: can she realistically be considered? It is my understanding that a President of the Untied States HAS to be American born (hence all the controversy about Obama). Although Senator Duckworth's father was American, she was born in Thailand. While she could be VP, if something were to happen to Mr. Biden (assuming he wins the election, of course) could she step in as President or would this create a Constitutional Crisis? 216.223.104.13 (talk) 13:52, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

See Natural-born-citizen clause, specifically the first two paragraphs. Short answer, the matter is unsettled. --Viennese Waltz 13:57, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

See also the discussion of Ted Cruz, whose situation is pretty similar: Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to a U.S. citizen and a Cuban national. The academic consensus, at least from how our article on the natural-born-citizen clause reads, is that Cruz would be eligible (with such luminaries as Erwin Chemerinsky and Bryan A. Garner supporting this view, to name a few). There were some prominent names arguing that Cruz would not have been eligible (such as Laurence Tribe). But yes, Viennese Waltz has it quite right: It's unsettled. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 16:56, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I should clarify, by "unsettled", I mean that as far as I know SCOTUS hasn't ruled on the question. Also as far as I know the lower federal courts haven't addressed the merits of the question, though I wouldn't be surprised if the courts handling the Obama birth lawsuits at least indirectly discussed it when ruling on motions to dismiss. By no means should "unsettled" be taken to mean "it could go either way, we really don't know how the courts would rule." We know pretty well that the federal courts would adopt the dominant view, that citizens at birth are eligible, wherever they were born, while naturalized citizens are not. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 16:37, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

She can't be VP unless she's also eligible to be president. And there was no factual controversy about Obama. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:19, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) More specifically, see the paragraph headed Natural-born-citizen clause#Foreign soil and territories. Alansplodge (talk) 14:24, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, certainly Hawaii could be classed as one of "the Untied States". More seriously, how can "natural-born citizen" mean "born in 'America'"? I thought it was agreed that the phrase means "citizen at birth", which (correct me if I'm wrong) means:

• born in a United States territory or

• born outside the U S to a U S citizen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a00:23c5:c70b:500:ed1e:d467:15f0:ebae (talk • contribs) 14:30, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

As others have said, your view is the dominant view, but some doubt remains. There's extensive discussion at natural-born-citizen clause. --Trovatore (talk) 18:25, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

My expectation of the term "natural-born citizen" would be someone born via natural childbirth, ie not by caesarian section or with the use of anaesthesia. Could this interpretation be used to get rid of an incumbent president?-gadfium 21:29, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, it was once used in reverse (kind-of) to get rid of an incumbent king. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.56.20 (talk) 06:41, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• It's also worth reading what the founders had to say about the natural born citizen clause. The Federalist Papers deals with the matter. The main concern was that foreign-born princes would use the fact that the U.S. had an elected executive as a means to get themselves elected to be President of the U.S. and turn it in to a puppet of foreign states. They had the example of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth of a similar situation, where the elective nature of King had disastrous effects on the Polish state, eventually leading to its dissolution and annexation by its neighbors. Federalist No. 19 deals extensively with problematic elective systems in other countries (HRE, Poland, Switzerland), while Federalist No. 68 also deals with concerns over foreign influence over the Presidency, in a few places. This concern seems like a non-issue in any recent election. Also, the meaning of "natural-born citizen" has never been meaningfully elaborated on, and as noted by MANY people above, and in most commentaries you read on the issue, it means "citizen from birth", and under U.S. citizenship law, Duckworth qualifies as such. --174.109.40.22 (talk) 19:17, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

OK. I asked this question due to the Obama "controversy" that he was not born on "American soil." Since Obama was undeniably born on American soil, how would Duckworth's case be the same? She may have been born as an American citizen, but she was not born on American soil (born in Thailand). Would this not create significant controversy? 209.91.188.70 (talk) 14:28, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

See Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. Obama's father was not an American citizen. Had he been born outside U S territory reliance would have had to be placed on his mother's American citizenship BUT some commentators have suggested that for Obama to be "natural born" his mother would have had to have been in U S territory for at least "five years after the age of 14". She was 18 years and 9 months old when Obama was born on 4 August 1961. Hawaii became a state on 21 August 1959 and the family moved there in 1961 from Seattle. Senator Duckworth's father is an American citizen. Her mother is Thai. 2A00:23C5:E117:6100:744C:67DA:489B:F71C (talk) 15:03, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Church gallery article?

Do we have an article about the galleries that are found in churches, like this or this for example? I found Minstrels' gallery and Gallery (theatre) which are similar, but don't really fit the bill. Alansplodge (talk) 16:47, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. Quite a few mentioned (and shown) in Church architecture but without a special term other than gallery (which article contains your two examples exactly). So perhaps no? Interestingly, most of the examples in the French wiki article are in churches - but French also doesn't have a church-specific term. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:04, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

We called it a "balcony". Here are some opinions on it.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:57, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Not all Americans do: "The interior of the church is organized around a three-aisle plan with second story self-supporting gallery" (from Church of St. Luke and The Epiphany (Philadelphia) picked at random). Alansplodge (talk) 13:41, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

The original sense in connection to churches is as shown here. Two characteristics missing in your typical church balcony are that there is a walkway along the length from one end to the other, and that there is a colonnade on the side looking out onto the nave. In early theatres like the Globe, the galleries also had a row of columns, but in later architecture these could largely be avoided, while the name "gallery" was kept for what were now essentially balconies. In present-day use, the terms are practically synonymous both for theatres and for churches.  --Lambiam 23:25, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

The Architecture of Norman England (p. 254) calls that a "tribune gallery", which fits in with the French name fr:Tribune (architecture). Perhaps the Gallery (architecture) can be expanded from a disambiguation page and we then can merge-in the theatre and minstrel gallery pages which seem doomed to remain eternal stubs. A job for a rainy day maybe? Thanks everyone. Alansplodge (talk) 13:41, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Choir loft is another term, sometimes even in cases where they are simply extra seating for congregants and not reserved for the singers only. Rmhermen (talk) 20:30, 30 June 2020 (UTC)