The two-sentence judgment from a three-judge panel in Franklin County said opponents of the proposal did not "demonstrate their right" to get a court order throwing out the petitions.

The judges did not outline their reasoning, but had questioned amendment backers in a morning hearing on why they were suing in appeals court and if they had waited too long.

"There is no right to require the secretary of state to reject the petitions for lack of a summary," said Donald Brey, special counsel to Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. "You don't throw out all these petitions at this point on a technicality that has already been ruled upon four or five months ago."

Alan Melamed, head of the campaign to stop the amendment, said the group had not yet decided whether to appeal but will continue other challenges to the petitions.

The amendment seeks to bar any type of civil unions or the legal privileges of marriage to unmarried couples.

Opponents sued on Wednesday, saying Blackwell should never have submitted petition signatures to the 88 county elections boards for validation because the forms violate Ohio law by failing to include a summary of the amendment's intent. Instead the petitions include only the 55-word amendment as it would appear on the ballot.

"Even though this initiative is short, it is filled in its second sentence with incredible ambiguities," said John P. Gilligan, lead attorney for the amendment opponents.

Brey said the Ohio Constitution does not require the summary, and that an earlier court ruling held the amendment language was sufficient for the petitions.

In May, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Hogan said the state law requiring the summary unconstitutionally impeded the petition process when the proposed amendment is so short.

Supporters of the ban submitted 144,000 more signatures last week after Blackwell notified them they had fallen short by 42,000.

Opponents have filed legal challenges to the first signatures in about 40 counties.

The lawsuit also named Cuyahoga and Hamilton counties for refusing to hear protests to petition signatures there because the election is fewer than 50 days away.

Amendment opponents argued the 50-day rule would not apply to protests already in progress.

Amendment opponents will attempt to throw out the new signatures as well, Melamed said, adding that one possible ground for protesting is that Blackwell did not wait until local courts ruled on all the earlier protests before notifying backers that they needed to submit more signatures.

Two-thirds of likely Ohio voters would vote for the proposed amendment, while 30 percent were opposed and 6 percent were undecided, according to a poll by the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The poll of 1,500 registered voters has an error margin of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.