Star-Ledger: Supreme Court backs civil unions, but not same-sex marriage.

The high court adopted an approach similar to that taken by the Vermont Supreme Court in 1999, which ruled lawmakers can reserve the term “marriage” for the union of one man and one woman, but must grant all couples equal legal protections. Vermont lawmakers responded by allowing same-sex couples to form “civil unions.”

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Even so, today’s ruling exponentially increases the legal benefits available to same-sex couples who formalize their unions. A 2004 law allowing same-sex couples to form “domestic partnerships” gave them only a fraction of the more than 800 rights conferred by marriage, albeit some of the most important ones.