The fine folks behind Proposition 8 have filed a brief today asking the California Supreme Court to nullify the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place before the ban went into affect on November 5.

“Proposition 8’s brevity is matched by its clarity. There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions or exclusions,” reads the brief co-written by Pepperdine University law school dean Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton.

Proposition 8’s supporters assert that the Supreme Court lacks the authority or historical precedent to throw out the amendment.

“For this court to rule otherwise would be to tear asunder a lavish body of jurisprudence,” the court papers state. “That body of decisional law commands judges — as servants of the people — to bow to the will of those whom they serve — even if the substantive result of what people have wrought in constitution-amending is deemed unenlightened.”

Attorney General Jerry Brown, will also submit a counter brief maintaining the gay marriage ban cannot be applied retroactively.

Complete story here…

First Rick Warren and now this. What a merry fucking Christmas this is.

It appears that that No on Prop 8 website, and Florida’s No On 2 site (another anti-gay marriage initiative) were both victims of hackers yesterday evening in a coordinated denial of service attack at the height of fundraising efforts.

The No on Prop 8 campaign released the following statement:

“Today the NO on Prop 8 campaign’s Web site (http://www.noonprop8.com/) was the victim of what appears to be a coordinated attack designed to bring the system down. According to http://www.calitics.com/, the denial-of-service attack (DoS) on the NO on Prop 8 website occurred before 11:30pm, Wednesday, October 29th and coincides with a similar attack on Florida’s NO on 2 campaign, the Constitutional Amendment Against Marriage Equality. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, an attacker attempts to prevent legitimate users from accessing information or services. By targeting a computer and its network connection, or the computers and network of the sites, an attacker may be able to prevent someone from accessing email, web sites, online accounts (banking, etc.), or other services that rely on the affected computer. The most common and obvious type of DoS attack occurs when an attacker ‘floods’ a network with information.”

When attempting to make a donation last night we noticed how how sluggish the No on Prop 8 website was, but attributed it to an increase intraffic due to donations and not anything sinister.

Sometimes the site still feels sluggish today. If you are unable to get through to make a donation, you can also donate through ActBlue or at Equality California. The No on Prop 8 campaign needs $3 million in donations by midnight Friday to counter the opposition’s recent surge in donations to purchase airtime for ads between now and election day. The campaign fears we may lose without this support.

While I am not surprised by the intellectual dishonesty of No on Prop 8’s opponents, I am a little surprised with the intellectual capability of it’s supporters to put together such an attack.

I guess hackers come in all stripes, even bigots.