This weekend, families across the country celebrated Father's Day. My partner Brad and I got to spend the evening with my parents, relaxing on their screened porch here in Raleigh.

With a quarter of same-gender couples raising kids under the age of 18, plenty of gay dads were celebrating the day as well. And while those gay dads are every bit a father to their kids, many of them are still strangers in the eyes of the law.

In my home state of North Carolina, a State Supreme Court decision held that only married couples can jointly adopt children — and with marriage denied to gay and lesbian couples, parents simply don't have access to the critical legal protections they need to take care of their children. So thousands of Tar Heel kids are left with two loving parents in their hearts -- but only one under the law -- including Mark and Tim's four sons.

As Mark and Tim's story shows -- children's lives are affected by this lack of legal protection in countless ways. From gaining access to health insurance to knowing who gets to sign the permission slip for field trips -- children are negatively impacted by the harmful laws that refuse to recognize both their parents. And, in the unfortunate case where parents break up, children are put at risk of needlessly being cut off from a parent they've know their whole life if their one legal parent chooses to use this anti-LGBT law against their ex.

Across the country, state equality groups are working hard to address this painful gap in our laws -- both by pushing for marriage equality and by working to ensure that second parent adoption is an option in states where marriage is likely still a few years away.