RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will not sign a bill that puts a proposed constitutional same-sex marriage ban on November’s statewide ballot, his administration said.

Instead, Kaine will allow the bill to take force without his signature.

Kaine announced actions on several bills, including support for a sales tax holiday for school supplies and a ban on disrupting funerals, hours ahead of the deadline for him to sign, veto or amend legislation passed this year.

The governor also will veto about a half-dozen bills, including one that would let the General Assembly appoint most of the members of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, said press secretary Kevin Hall.

Legislators met this week to consider Kaine’s amendments and vetoes.

Governors have no authority over proposed constitutional amendments. Once passed in two successive legislative sessions separated by a House election, the issue goes directly to voters for ratification, the final step in amending Virginia’s Constitution.

Kaine could have amended or vetoed the bill that orders the proposed amendment onto the ballot, but it would have been futile. The bill passed the House and the Senate with more than the two-thirds majorities required to override a veto.

Kaine, the state’s first Roman Catholic governor, has long said he supports the central premise of the proposal – that marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman.

He opposes a provision that would bar same-sex couples from signing contracts that simulate the rights of marriage. Kaine said it threatens individual contracting rights and weakens “the discretion of employers to extend certain benefits, such as health care coverage, to unmarried couples.”

He wrote in a statement released by his office he will vote against the same-sex marriage amendment this fall, “and I urge other Virginians to vote against it as well.”

The conservative Family Foundation, a major supporter of the amendment, criticized Kaine’s refusal to sign the enabling legislation.

“It is disappointing that a governor who has spoken so eloquently about his faith has chosen to break his campaign promise,” said Victoria Cobb, the foundation’s president.

The emotional issue could become the most contentious issue before Virginia voters in an off-year federal election featuring races for U.S. Senate and several congressional seats. The high-profile campaign will pit religious and conservative advocacy groups against those that support gay rights and civil liberties.

Kaine signed a bill by Del. Charles W. Carrico Sr. that makes organized disruptions of funerals a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Carrico, R-Grayson, aimed the bill at protests staged at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. The protests are orchestrated across the country by a fundamentalist, anti-gay congregation in Topeka, Kan., whose leader, the Rev. Fred Phelps, claims the troops were killed for defending a nation that tolerates homosexuality. Church members show up at the funerals with signs that say “God Hates Fags” and “God Made IEDs,” a reference to improvised explosive devices that have killed many Americans serving in Iraq.

“It is unfortunate that the rising numbers of protests at the funerals of military servicemen and women has made it necessary to legislate what common decency already requires,” Kaine said in the release.