[rdcbn]

This was during the days of segregation. In view of the historical context here, Obama’s lack of desire to list Obama as his child could also be explained the fact that a black man having a child with a white women at the time was actually illegal in many states under segregationist laws. There was even a formal legal term for this offense.

Obama could have been arrested and put in jail for this. As a foreign visitor, he almost certainly would have been deported back to Kenya. The documents show that he was de facto deported and his indiscretions with various women were at least part of the reason

[Ticonderoga34]

Looks like you answered my question.

[autumnraine]

And yet he didn’t mind knocking up and marrying *other* white women during this time...

[Brown Deer]

Obama could have been arrested and put in jail for this. As a foreign visitor, he almost certainly would have been deported back to Kenya. The documents show that he was de facto deported and his indiscretions with various women were at least part of the reason.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1878 that plurality of wives (polygamy), as originally permitted by the Mormon religion, violated criminal law and was not defensible as an exercise of religious liberty. All 50 states have statutes against bigamy. In most states, bigamy is a felony.

If a man celebrates his first marriage under the African Christian Marriage and Divorce Act, the Marriage Act or the Hindu Marriage and Divorce Act, he becomes a bigamist -- a criminal -- if he marries another woman or women unless the first marriage is legally dissolved. Section 171 of the Penal Code provides for imprisonment for five years, while Section 42 of the Marriage Act provides for imprisonment "not exceeding five years".

[StAnDeliver]

Hawaii didn't have miscegenation or Jim Crow laws. Hawaii was a state only 8 years before the ironically-named Loving struck down all miscengenation laws. But they had their own long-standing problems with racism (not just talking black-white here) and a de facto caste system among all the immigrants and the islanders.