Proponents of the amendment say approval would prevent the possibility of state jurists someday reading a right to gay marriage into the constitution.

That would keep Texas from mimicking Massachusetts -- where the highest court ruled in 2003 that the state constitution gave same-sex couples the right to marry -- or other states where lower courts have recognized same-sex unions.

The judge said the amendment deprived Nebraskans of the ability to lobby legislators for legal changes affecting gay residents. His ruling is under appeal.

Federal courts could conceivably intervene in Texas, though Laycock called the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which handles Texas appeals, unlikely to support weakening the marriage definition.

"There's a reason these cases all come from" less conservative states, Laycock said. "You have to have a sufficiently tolerant and liberal environment to make it plausible for same-sex partners to have the same rights" as others.

But conservative lawyer Robert Bork predicted last year that absent a marriage amendment in the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court would create a right to homosexual marriage within a few years, perhaps in a case carried by a couple married in Massachusetts who moves to Texas and claims the status and rights of marriage.

But "it's not hard to imagine a lawsuit being brought," Mayo said. "This (amendment) is one more arrow in the quiver for those defending opposite-sex marriage."

Beyond defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, the ballot proposal bars the state or any political subdivision from creating or recognizing "any legal status identical or similar to marriage," words intended to head off civil unions or other marriage-like arrangements.

Upton said the wording potentially leaves in question such practices as employers offering health insurance and other benefits to domestic partners of employees.

Travis County Commissioner Karen Sonleitner, opposing the amendment, expressed concern for a program permitting the county's nearly 3,500 employees to buy health insurance for an additional adult in their household. More than 400 people are insured through the program.

In Michigan, a judge recently held that that state's 2004 marriage amendment did not restrict employers from offering benefits to partners of employees; she called the benefits a result of employment, not marriage.

No Nonsense in November, an Austin-based group opposed to the Texas amendment, suggests that the wording could imperil common-law marriage, a union between two people who've agreed to be married, held themselves out as husband and wife and live together in that fashion.

Shackelford said no judge would reasonably outlaw common-law marriage based on the amendment; that would be akin to saying that because the amendment doesn't explicitly protect marriages registered in county courthouses, it threatens all marriages.

"What you don't know is how (the language) is going to be interpreted," Szaj said. "The reality is there are a lot of nontraditional families out there now, people who won't or can't get married, and then you have the kids. They need legal status to get services."

Shackelford underscored language approved by lawmakers stating that Texans can make contracts to assure legal relationships outside of marriage.

The language states that "through the designation of guardians, the appointment of agents, and the use of private contracts, persons may adequately and properly appoint guardians and arrange rights relating to hospital visitation, property, and the entitlement to proceeds of life insurance policies" outside of marriage.

* Provides that people may appoint guardians and arrange rights relating to hospital visitation, property and life insurance benefits without a legal marriage by designating guardians, appointing agents and making private contracts.

* Declares that marriage consists only of the union of one man and one woman and prohibits the state or a political subdivision from creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage, including relationships created outside Texas.

* Identical to 2003 law in providing that people may appoint guardians and arrange rights relating to hospital visitation, property and life insurance benefits without a legal marriage by designating guardians, appointing agents and making private contracts.

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