Alli leans on mom Linda’s shoulder at the Vilonia United Methodist Church, where the family frequently worships. Benjamin Krain for Al Jazeera America

Angie holds one of the family’s eight chickens, who normally hang out in the backyard. Benjamin Krain for Al Jazeera America

The family has many pets, including Calvin the dog. Benjamin Krain for Al Jazeera America

Justin, a senior in high school, wants to tour with a band after he graduates. Benjamin Krain for Al Jazeera America

Alli joins her two moms on a trip to the grocery store. Benjamin Krain for Al Jazeera America

Together for three years, Linda and Angie live in Vilonia, a small town in Arkansas, the state that has registered the lowest support for gay marriage in the U.S. Benjamin Krain for Al Jazeera America

Linda Meyers, second from left, and her partner, Angie Shelby, pose at home with their two children, Alli, 13, and Justin, 17. Benjamin Krain for Al Jazeera America

VILONIA, Ark. — This is an American family: Angie, Linda, Justin and Alli.

To be more specific, Angie Shelby and Linda Meyers, both 47, are a same-sex couple who have been dating for three years. Their kids are Justin, a 17-year-old high school senior who wants to tour with his band after he graduates, and Alli, who, like many a 13-year-old girl, is perpetually glued to her phone.

For the more expansive view, there’s three dogs, Pudgy, Sassy and the elderly Calvin, prone to peeing on the hardwood floors of their home at the slightest provocation; a lizard, Saphira; a fish; and eight chickens that live in the backyard — Cupcake, Chocolate, Red, Happy, Chirp, Y, Dot and Fluffy.

“We have a zoo around here, but we like it,” Shelby said as she carried Cupcake into the living room, prompting Alli to let out an ear-splitting shriek. Alli does not care for the chickens.

On a recent cold winter evening, the Meyers-Shelby clan was a picture of happy, if chaotic, domesticity — a scene becoming ever more unexceptional across the country as LGBT relationships and families become widely accepted by the public.

But this wasn’t San Francisco or Washington, D.C., or Manhattan. It was Vilonia, a tiny town of 3,000 people, in Arkansas, the state that registers the absolute lowest support for gay marriage in the country. According to a 2012 survey done by the Williams Institute, a think tank housed within the UCLA law school, just 31 percent of the population here approves of same-sex unions, compared with 52 percent of people nationwide.

In 2004, an amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman — including a prohibition on civil unions — was enshrined in the state constitution, with the support of 75 percent of Arkansas voters.

Shelby and Meyer’s life in Arkansas is a reminder that although the LGBT community has made once-unthinkable strides in the past two decades, progress is unfolding unevenly, even haltingly, in parts of the country.

National marriage equality advocates said they never expected to gain uniform acceptance all at once.

“The strategy has never been to win all 50 states — that’s not how any social justice campaign has succeeded,” said Evan Wolfson, the president of Freedom to Marry, the nation’s preeminent same-sex marriage advocacy group. “Pretty much all the states in the South have a long way to go.”

Shelby chuckled and grimaced at the same time when reminded about the dismal statistics in the state she was born and raised in — the same one that refuses to recognize her relationship.

“It depresses me,” she said. “We would like to be married.”