ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia’s top court on July 6 reinstated the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, reversing a lower court judge’s ruling.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the ban did not violate the state’s single-subject rule for ballot measures. Superior Court Judge Constance Russell of Fulton County had held that it did. Neither ruling addressed the merits of same-sex marriage.

Seventy-six percent of Georgia voters approved the ban when it was on the ballot in November 2004.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case had argued that the ballot language was misleading, asking voters to decide on both same-sex marriage and civil unions, separate issues about which many people had different opinions.

The state held that Georgians knew what they were voting on when they overwhelmingly approved the ballot measure.

“It is apparent that the prohibition against recognizing same-sex unions as entitled to the benefits of marriage is not ‘dissimilar and discordant’ to the objective of reserving the status of marriage and its attendant benefits exclusively to unions of man and woman,” the court said in its ruling.

Jack Senterfitt, a lawyer with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which challenged the constitutional amendment, said he was disappointed with the ruling but that no further legal challenge was planned.

Russell’s ruling in May ignited a political firestorm in Georgia. Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican who is up for re-election in November, said he would call a special session of the state Legislature in August if the court had not ruled by then so that a new ballot measure could be placed before voters. Such a move was widely seen as beneficial to Perdue and state Republicans because it would likely energize conservative voters in the

state.