How the New Jersey ruling fares in future litigation as to the "marriage" designation itself is an open question, recognized as so by the Court. Indeed, this passage from the Court's opinion portends a close look at the matter from a "separate but equal" lens:
Under our equal protection jurisprudence, however, plaintiffs' claimed right to the name of marriage is surely not the same now that equal rights and benefits must be conferred on committed same-sex [*85] couples.
We do not know how the Legislature will proceed to remedy the equal protection disparities that currently exist in our statutory scheme. The Legislature is free to break from the historical traditions that have limited the definition of marriage to heterosexual couples or to frame a civil union style structure, as Vermont and Connecticut have done. Whatever path the Legislature takes, our starting point must be to presume the constitutionality of legislation. Caviglia, supra, 178 N.J. at 477, 842 A.2d 125 ("A legislative enactment is presumed to be constitutional and the burden is on those challenging the legislation to show that it lacks a rational basis."). We will give, as we must, deference to any legislative enactment unless it is unmistakably shown to run afoul of the Constitution. Hamilton Amusement Ctr. v. Verniero, 156 N.J. 254, 285, 716 A.2d 1137 (1998) (stating that presumption of statute's validity "can be rebutted only upon a showing that the statute's repugnancy to the Constitution is clear beyond a reasonable doubt" (internal quotation marks omitted)), cert. denied, 527 U.S. 1021, 119 S. Ct. 2365, 144 L. Ed. 2d 770 (1999). [*86] Because this State has no experience with a civil union construct that provides equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples, we will not speculate that identical schemes called by different names would create a distinction that would offend Article I, Paragraph 1. We will not presume that a difference in name alone is of constitutional magnitude.
