§ 1738A) is a United States law that establishes national standards for the assertion of child custody jurisdiction.
The Act gives preference to the home state in which the child resided within the past six months for the purpose of preventing a child's parent from forum shopping, that is, initiating legal action in a different state for the purpose of obtaining a favorable court ruling.
The enactment of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 created a conflict in the case of children of a legally married same-sex couple.
[1] When DOMA was declared unconstitutional and all U.S. states are required to recognize same-sex marriages as a matter of U.S.
The federal Respect for Marriage Act (enacted December 13, 2022[2]) further protected these rights and removed DOMA from the books, even in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court reverses the constitutional holding of Obergefell v. Hodges in some later case.