Most Americans reject the inane idea that all relationships are created equal.

In our personal lives as well as our political positions, we understand and embrace the undeniable, commonsense truth that some intimate associations are more significant, more valuable than others.

That's why there's so little enthusiasm for last week's odd, ill-considered decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

On the one hand, the court leaves it to the legislature to determine whether gay couples should receive the same marital designation as traditional male-female partnerships.

"We cannot find that a right to same-sex marriage is so deeply rooted in the tradition, history and conscience of the people of this state that it ranks as a fundamental right," said Justice Barry T. Albin for the 4-3 court majority.

On the other hand, he and his colleagues ordered the legislature to grant "every statutory right and benefit conferred to heterosexual couples" to "committed same-sex couples. … We cannot find a legitimate public need for an unequal legal scheme of benefits and privileges."

In other words, the imperial judiciary graciously allows the people and their elected representatives to reserve the term "marriage" for opposite-sex couples, but the legislature is not permitted to confer any practical benefits — tuition assistance, tax breaks or survivor payments — exclusively to those partnerships that qualify as marriages.

The decision therefore represents a unique frontal assault on the privileged position of marriage in society: The state isn't permitted to treat matrimony differently from other couplings that might be called "civil unions," "domestic partnerships" or "longtime pals."

The judges won't allow New Jersey to do what governments have always done: to establish a hierarchy among human relationships, with special recognition and privileges for those connections that the people deem most useful and consequential.

Admittedly, the old idea of ranking relationships based on their significance and utility goes against the grain of a radically egalitarian age, but does it make sense to say that Britney Spears' notorious first marriage, which lasted all of 54 hours, impacted the world as much as her second marriage, which has already lasted more than two years, and produced two children?

However much one may despise Britney's current hapless husband, Kevin Federline, their relationship counts as more significant than her previous fleeting alliance, and, for the sake of the two children, society has an undeniable interest in keeping the parents together to take responsibility for their offspring.

And speaking of offspring, we just welcomed a house guest who is one of 12 children from the same father and mother. Each of these kids is, as it happens, hardworking, high-achieving and communal-minded, so it's safe to say that the relationship of the two parents behind this extraordinary brood stands as more consequential than a similarly long-term union of a childless couple.

When many nations worry about a population dearth, it's hardly unreasonable for governments to consider privileges for the parents of 12 that wouldn't be open to couples without kids.

It makes unmistakable sense for society to draw distinctions among relationships based upon their long-term impact, and in that sense procreative potential makes a partnership obviously more worthy of privileged consideration.

With this in mind, previous decisions by high courts in Washington, New York and California made reference to the organic connection between marriage and childbearing — an association all but ignored in the New Jersey judgment.

Whenever defenders of traditional male-female marriage note that these relationships can produce progeny while homosexual unions cannot, gay advocates invariably ask about infertile or elderly opposite-sex couples.

If man and woman have no more chance at baby-making than two gay lovers, should they still get the chance to marry?

I would argue they should, for many reasons. Continued...