Opponents of a same-sex marriage ban released a statement Wednesday signed by nearly 60 California law professors debunking the claims of those who support traditional marriage, calling the campaign “deceptive and misleading.”

“As teachers of the law, we feel an obligation to speak out when claims are made about the law that are simply and clearly false,” Pam Karlan, a public interest law professor at Stanford Law School, said in a news release.

As reported on mydesert.com, the Yes on 8 campaign, supported by ProtectMarriage.com, which gathered the necessary signatures to place the proposed amendment on the ballot, disagrees with the scholars.

“Our campaign yesterday challenged Jack O'Connell and No on 8 to a televised debate to settle this once and for all,” said Sonja Eddings Brown, a Yes on 8 spokeswoman.

Proposition 8 is a voter initiative measure to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. In May, California Supreme Court justices ruled 4-3 that the same-sex marriage ban voters approved in 2000 was unconstitutional.

These scholars concluded that Proposition 8:

Discriminates against gays and lesbians.

Would have no effect on a church's tax exemption.

Would not affect education or parental rights.

“We recognize that people of integrity can differ in their views of the meaning of marriage,” the scholars said in a statement.

“But people who want to take the right to marry away from same-sex couples should not rely on misleading claims about the current state of the law or about what Proposition 8 would do.”

Yes on Prop. 8 ads on TV and radio spots have claimed that if the measure does not pass, kindergarten students will be compelled to learn about same-sex marriage while churches could lose their tax exempt status.

Proposition 8 supporters received fodder for their claims earlier this month after a public charter school took a first-grade class, with parental permission, to San Francisco City Hall, where their teacher married her partner.

“Parents know,” Brown said. “They've seen it in Massachusetts. They can see it happening in California. We know this is their long-term agenda.”

The California Teachers Association, the California School Boards Association and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell have all maintained Proposition 8 has nothing to do with public school education.

The No on 8 statement was signed by 59 law professors, including Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding Dean of the University of California School of Law, and Kathleen Sullivan, former Stanford Law School Dean.