ABSTRACT
The United States has recently undergone its own state of change as a patchwork of states individually legalized or banned same sex marriage before a Supreme Court decision in June 2015 finally legalized it across the United States. Marriage equality advocates have argued that marriage is a right, not a privilege in the United States. However, same sex marriage is now legal in the United States, and social acceptance is growing as new kinds of family structures are legitimated by social custom and legal recognition. Although there continues to be resistance to same sex marriages by certain cultural, political, and religious groups, acceptance is increasingly evident. Today's children will experience these expanded family structures as both normal and equal to traditional heterosexual relationships. Intersectionality arose from black feminist theory out of recognition that feminist thinking of the time often privileged the issues and experiences of white, middle-class women, while ignoring or negating the experiences of women of colour.
