JUSTICE ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The statutory and decisional laws of this State protect individuals from discrimination based on sexual orientation. When those individuals are gays and lesbians who follow the inclination of their sexual orientation and enter into a committed relationship with someone of the same sex, our laws treat them, as couples, differently than heterosexual couples. As committed same-sex partners, they are not permitted to marry or to enjoy the multitude of social and financial benefits and privileges conferred on opposite-sex married couples.
In this case, we must decide whether persons of the same sex have a fundamental right to marry that is encompassed within the concept of liberty guaranteed by Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution. Alternatively, we must decide whether Article I, Paragraph 1’s equal protection guarantee requires that committed same-sex couples be given on equal terms the legal benefits and privileges awarded to married heterosexual couples and, if so, whether that guarantee also requires that the title of marriage, as opposed to some other term, define the committed same-sex legal relationship.
Only rights that are deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people are deemed to be fundamental. Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this State, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our State Constitution. With this State’s legislative and judicial commitment to eradicating sexual orientation discrimination as our backdrop, we now hold that denying rights and benefits to committed same-sex couples that are statutorily given to their heterosexual counterparts violates the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1. To comply with this constitutional mandate, the Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or create a parallel statutory structure, which will provide for, on equal terms, the rights and benefits enjoyed and burdens and obligations borne by married couples. We will not presume that a separate statutory scheme, which uses a title other than marriage, contravenes equal protection principles, so long as the rights and benefits of civil marriage are made equally available to same-sex couples. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.
I.
A.
Plaintiffs are seven same-sex couples who claim that New Jersey's laws, which restrict civil marriage to the union of a man and a woman, violate the liberty and equal protection guarantees of the New Jersey Constitution. Each plaintiff has been in a "permanent committed relationship" for more than ten years and each seeks to marry his or her partner and to enjoy the legal, financial, and social benefits that are afforded by marriage. When the seven couples applied for marriage licenses in the municipalities in which they live, the appropriate licensing officials told them that the law did not permit same-sex couples to marry. Plaintiffs then filed a complaint in the Superior Court, Law Division, challenging the constitutionality of the State's marriage statutes.
In terms of the value they place on family, career, and community service, plaintiffs lead lives that are remarkably similar to those of opposite-sex couples.{ { sup|} Alicia Toby and Saundra Heath, who reside in Newark, have lived together for seventeen years and have children and grandchildren. Alicia is an ordained minister in a church where her pastoral duties include coordinating her church's HIV prevention program. Saundra works as a dispatcher for Federal Express.
Mark Lewis and Dennis Winslow reside in Union City and have been together for fourteen years. They both are pastors in the Episcopal Church. In their ministerial capacities, they have officiated at numerous weddings and signed marriage certificates, though their own relationship cannot be similarly sanctified under New Jersey law. When Dennis's father was suffering from a serious long-term illness, Mark helped care for him in their home as would a devoted son-in-law.
Diane Marini and Marilyn Maneely were committed partners for fourteen years until Marilyn's death in 2005. The couple lived in Haddonfield, where Diane helped raise, as though they were her own, Marilyn's five children from an earlier marriage.