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(AgapePress) -- Pro-family and conservative leaders are criticizing a state trial court judge's decision to throw out an amendment to the Constitution of Georgia defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Nevertheless, many traditional supporters believe that, despite the court's ruling, traditional marriage in Georgia will ultimately be protected.

Attorneys with the pro-family legal group Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) say Judge Constance Russell, the trial court judge who declared the Georgia's "Amendment One" unconstitutional, misused a technicality known as the "single subject rule" that says amendments may not deal with multiple issues and must address one subject only. However, ADF senior legal counsel Mike Johnson believes the judge's contravention of the will of Georgia's voters, who approved the marriage amendment in November 2004, cannot stand for long.

"Georgia's Amendment One has one purpose: to protect marriage from attack," Johnson asserts. "The 76 percent of voters in Georgia who voted 'yes' to the single subject of protecting marriage from all contemporary threats deserve to have their vote respected and not dismissed by radical judges," he says.

The ADF spokesman points out that a situation similar to this judicial reversal in Georgia happened in another state not long ago, when a district court struck down the Louisiana Defense of Marriage Amendment on the same grounds as were used to strike down the Georgia amendment. In both cases, he notes, the trial judges ruled that the amendments were invalid because they addressed two topics -- marriage and civil unions.

Johnson helped defend Louisiana's marriage amendment from that attack. In the case known as Forum for Equality PAC v. McKeithen, the Louisiana Supreme Court unanimously overturned the state district court judge's decision and reinstated the marriage amendment, and the ADF senior counsel is convinced that a similar scenario will eventually play out in Georgia.

"This ruling will be appealed," the pro-family litigator contends, "and the Georgia Supreme Court will understand, just as Louisiana's high court did, that the sole objective of these amendments is to protect marriage and that the language of the amendment is crucial in achieving that single goal."

The state trial court judge who threw out Georgia's Amendment One may try to claim that civil unions and same-sex "marriage" are different subjects, Johnson adds; "but the people of Georgia," he insists, "know better. They understand that protecting marriage means protecting it from all imitations."

Bauer: State Controversy Proves Federal Amendment Needed

Conservative activist Gary Bauer of the group American Values agrees that Russell's ruling was a seriously flawed piece of jurisprudence. But while the judge's conclusion was based on "a contorted view" of Georgia's single subject law, Bauer observes, the state's political leaders appear to be united in their defense of traditional marriage.

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