Louisiana voters overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages and civil unions, but Saturday’s vote was far from the last word &045; a gay rights attorney promised vigorous court challenges.

With 80 percent of precincts reporting, the amendment was winning approval with 79 percent of the vote and support for it was evident statewide. Only in New Orleans, home to a politically strong gay community, did the race appear to be close, based on incomplete returns that showed slightly more voters opposing the measure than approving it.

In Concordia Parish, with a higher voter turnout than predicted, residents approved the amendment with 83.5 percent of the vote.

The only other issue on the Concordia ballot was a city marshal’s race. Jim Boren won with 54 percent of the vote, beating Rickey Hollins 527-450, according to unofficial results.

Concordia Parish Clerk of Courts Clyde Ray Webber said he was glad to be wrong about his prediction of a turnout of about 7 percent, noting the actual turnout might be about twice that.

Webber said many of the local preachers may have talked about the election with their congregations in the days leading up to the election.

Still, some people were confused by the wording of the amendment referendum, Webber said. Because voters who are against gay marriage had to vote &uot;For&uot; when they cast ballots, he predicted some &uot;Against&uot; votes in Concordia Parish and in the state were actually from voters who were against gay marriage.

John Rawls, an attorney with Forum for Equality, a civil rights group that opposed the amendment, said there were many possible grounds for challenging Saturday’s results in state and federal court. They included the late delivery of voting machines to some New Orleans precincts Saturday, which kept some from casting ballots for hours.

The overwhelming approval followed an intense grass roots lobbying campaign by Christian conservatives. Gene Mills, of the Louisiana Family Forum outlined a statewide effort relying on word of mouth, meetings with pastors from different regions and some paid media.

Gay rights advocates had targeted civic and opinion leaders around the state with mailings of a brochure outlining their objections. They pointed out that while the amendment simply defines marriage in Louisiana as being between one man and one woman, it also contains a full paragraph of legal jargon involving the &uot;legal incidents of marriage&uot; and unions &uot;identical or similar to&uot; conventional marriage.

While there was general agreement that the amendment banned civil unions as well as gay marriages (which are already illegal in the state), supporters and opponents of the amendment disagreed over whether it also could be used to ban agreements between gay partners involving hospital visitation rights, retirement benefits, disability protection, medical benefits and inheritance. Private companies’ decisions to extend benefits to the unmarried domestic partners &045; gay or straight &045; of their employees could be endangered, they said.

Backers of the amendment, including LSU law school professor Katherine Spaht, who helped write it, characterized such fears as overblown.

&uot;It doesn’t touch private contracts,&uot; she said.

But advocates on both sides agreed it will be up to the courts to decide exactly what the amendment does and does not do.

First, however, courts may have to step in and decide if the amendment was legally adopted.

In challenges that went all the way to the state Supreme Court, Forum for Equality said the Legislature made several mistakes in putting the measure together, chief among them the placing a ban on civil unions in the amendment along with a ban on gay marriage. Amendments are supposed to have a single purpose, opponents of the measure said.

That challenge was turned away when the courts ruled that it was premature and can only be taken up after the vote was taken. However, Chief Justice Pascal Calogero wrote that the court would possibly have to address a post-election challenge on the multiple purpose issue.