Monday marks the 10th anniversary of the day Vermont instituted civil unions for same-sex couples. In the ensuing years, thousands of Americans have begun to hope that they and their children could become legally secure.

Today the hope remains, but the promise of security remains unfulfilled, and it is the children who suffer.

On April 26, 2000, then-Gov. Howard Dean signed civil unions into law, making Vermont the first state to provide legal support for these families.

After Vermont, the movement to help these families gained ground. Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004. Soon, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia did the same. New Jersey instituted civil unions. Eight states passed laws providing some legal benefits. Last year, Vermont even instituted marriage equality.

Despite all that, not a single place exists in this country where the children of same-sex couples receive the same legal protections that children of heterosexuals enjoy. A federal law prohibits legally married couples from receiving the more than 1,000 marriage benefits other Americans get. This impoverishes families, turns the federal tax code against them and prohibits widows and widowers from receiving pensions and Social Security survivor benefits, among other problems.

President Obama’s recent order requiring hospitals to allow same-sex couples to visit each other helps, but it isn’t nearly enough.

Marriage equality has been overturned in California and Maine. Twenty-nine other states ban same-sex marriage in their constitutions, including 19 that prohibit any kind of benefits for these families.

Make no mistake: The issue is family.

Nearly 600,000 same-sex couples have identified themselves in Census Bureau surveys, UCLA’s Williams Institute reports. Almost 116,000 of these are raising children under 18. I suspect that is a huge undercount, given that most forms of anti-gay discrimination are still legal.

I’m a lesbian and a mother. I can affirm that our children suffer.

This month, former Arkansas Gov. and presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee compared lesbian and gay couples to drug users and people who engage in incest and polygamy. He praised laws that keep lesbians and gays from adopting. “We should act in the best interest of the children,” Huckabee said.

I can’t imagine how it would have been in my son’s best interest to be orphaned after his birth mother, my spouse, died of breast cancer. If such laws had been in effect in my state, my son, then 7, would have lost both parents instead of one.

I turn 58 soon. I pray I live to see the day when my family and all like it are treated with decency.

Vermont started a revolution. It is long past time to complete it.

Diane Silver is a Kansas-based writer and columnist. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.