Same-Sex Marriage Amendment Is Struck Down by Georgia Judge
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: May 17, 2006

ATLANTA, May 16 — A state amendment banning same-sex marriage was struck down Tuesday by a judge who upheld the voters' right to limit marriage to heterosexual couples but cited procedural flaws in the wording of the amendment, which was approved by more than three-quarters of voters.

The decision is one of the first successful challenges to a ban on same-sex marriage, one of a spate of similar amendments passed in 11 states in November 2004, said Jack Senterfitt, a senior staff lawyer in the Southern regional office of Lambda Legal, a national gay rights group.
Lambda Legal filed the suit along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. Besides Georgia, 18 states have such laws, a spokeswoman for Lambda Legal said.

The Georgia amendment defined marriage as between a man and a woman, banned same-sex civil unions and said that same-sex unions performed in other states would not be recognized. The judge, Constance C. Russell of Fulton County Superior Court, ruled that the amendment violated Georgia's single-subject rule, which limits each amendment put before voters to one topic. the rest