Full Faith and Credit Clause - Application To Family Law

Application To Family Law

The Full Faith and Credit Clause has been applied to orders of protection, for which the clause was invoked by the Violence Against Women Act, and child support, for which the enforcement of the clause was spelled out in the Federal Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act (28 U.S.C. § 1738B).

Until the Supreme Court struck down all laws banning interracial marriage in 1967, a number of states banned interracial marriage and did not accept interracial marriage certificates issued in other states. The full faith and credit clause was never used to force a state to recognize a marriage it did not wish to recognize.

The clause's application to state-sanctioned same-sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships is unresolved, as is its relationship to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. Between 1996 and 2004, 39 states passed laws and constitutional amendments that define marriage as consisting solely of different-sex couples. Most explicitly prohibit the state from honoring same-sex marriages performed in other states and countries. Conversely, same-sex marriage is legal in several states and the District of Columbia. In August 2007, a federal appeals court held that the clause did require Oklahoma to issue a revised birth certificate showing both adoptive parents of a child born in Oklahoma who had been adopted by a same-sex couple married in another state. Another federal appeals court held differently in April 2011 in a Louisiana case, Adar v. Smith.