The woman in line ahead of me reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of gum. Her granddaughter -- old enough to walk but still too young to wander from her grandmother's side -- shook her head.

She wanted the crackers instead. Grandma obliged.

During that hour and a half we were in line to vote, I watched the two interact. The granddaughter wanted to sit. She wanted to stand. She had to go potty. She wanted to go home.

The grandma had an answer to every question, every request.

I wondered if this was a one-day arrangement or a regular babysitting gig. Or maybe it was permanent. I was almost embarrassed that I assumed the woman was babysitting the little girl. Maybe she was raising her.

I remember being in grade school and learning about family structures. Mine was like the nuclear family in the textbook picture -- a mom, dad, brother and sister.

It took a while to learn everyone's family picture is different.

Grandparents are raising grandchildren. Aunts and uncles take in nieces and nephews. Single women are raising children on their own, and so are single men.

On Election Day, as I observed the grandmother and granddaughter, voters in Arkansas were having their own thoughts about what a family means.

With 57 percent support, they voted to ban unmarried people -- such as gay couples -- from adopting children.

What a disappointment. And what an insult to anything that isn't a nuclear family.

Sure, there need to be safeguards to protect the adoptive children. But to deny a child the love of a permanent family, just because that family doesn't look like the nuclear family in the textbook, is ridiculous and unfair.

Who's to say that unmarried straight or gay couples cannot provide a child with a loving home? Who's to say that a married couple can?

I was talking to some of my friends about the definition of "family." A lot of them said the same thing: a family is a group of people who love one another.

Almost all of them said they consider their friends as family members.

Military, police and firefighters refer to themselves as brothers. They're a family.

Church congregations call each other brothers and sisters. That's a family, too.

A family isn't having a dad at the head of the table with an apron-wearing mom taking a meatloaf out of the oven as two kids finish their homework. It could be a grandfather walking his grandkids from school or a friend driving a single mom-to-be to the hospital to give birth.

A family is love.

Vanessa Renderman covers Tri-Town for The Times. You can reach her at vrenderman@nwitimes.com