Today, a panoply of prominent tech and Internet leaders is taking a very public stand against a controversial initiative before California voters, which would eliminate the current legal right of same-sex couples to marry.

Forming a group and taking out a full-page ad in the San Jose Mercury News tomorrow, the execs hope to convince voters to reject Proposition 8, which is titled “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.”

Silicon Valley has had a long history of supporting gay rights. And recently, Google (GOOG) Co-Founder Sergey Brin has made a strong statement opposing Proposition 8, while Apple (AAPL) gave $100,000 to help defeat it.

The honorary co-chairs of “Silicon Valley Leaders Say NO on Proposition 8″ include: Brin; Bill Campbell, Chairman, Intuit; David Filo, Founder, Yahoo; Chuck Geschke, Founder and Chairman, Adobe Systems; John Morgridge, Former CEO and Chairman, Cisco Systems; Pierre Omidyar, Founder and Chairman, eBay; Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook; Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google; and Jerry Yang, Founder, Yahoo.

In a statement in a press release set to go out this morning, Yang said: “Silicon Valley has always been an example for the rest of the country of how diversity and openness help to drive innovation and value creation. This divisive measure is the antithesis of those values that make Silicon Valley so unique.”

An ad the group–which also includes star venture capitalist Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital, as well as Palm Founders Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins, and many others–is putting out tomorrow in the Mercury News reads:

Silicon Valley Leaders Urge You to Stand for Equality.
Vote No on Proposition 8.

As Silicon Valley leaders, we are committed to equality and fairness. We are opposed to Proposition 8 because it would change our state constitution to take away rights from one group of people. It would set our state, and our country, back in the fight for fundamental fairness and equal rights.

Please join us by reaching out to friends and neighbors and asking them to stand for fairness: Vote No on Proposition 8 on November 4th.”

(The ad and a longer list of tech leaders opposing Proposition 8 is below.)

If passed by a majority of voters, the California Constitution would be amended to include a new section stating “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry under the state’s constitution.

Former California State Controller and former exec at eBay Steve Westly noted that his own interracial marriage was once illegal, which is one of the reasons he was opposing Propostition 8.

“It really is the civil rights issue of the day … people stood up and fought for people like me and now it is time to stand up for others,” said Westly, who was an early supporter of gay marriage and is said to be eyeing a run for governor of the state. “While this is a polarizing issue, it is mind-boggling to me not to support the right of any two adults who love each other to marry.”

One thing is certain–the issue is indeed polarizing. Currently, the vote on Proposition 8 is very close, and a huge amount of money–more than $60 million–has been spent by both sides in the battle, which is considered one of the most contentious and high-profile in the nation.

Here is the ad (click on the image to make it larger):

LEADERS (partial list):
Deborah Barber, Principal, Jackson Hole Group
John Battelle, Chairman and CEO, Federated Media
Larry Birenbaum, Former Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems
Lorna Borenstein, President, Move
Larry Brilliant, Executive Director, Google.org
Owen Byrd, President, Byrd Development
John Chisholm, Chairman and CEO, CustomerSat
Barry Cinnamon, CEO, Akeena Solar
Tod Cohen, Director of Government Affairs, eBay
LaDoris Cordell, Administrator, Stanford University
Sue Decker, President, Yahoo!
Jack Dorsey, Chairman, Twitter
David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development & Chief Legal Officer, Google
Donna Dubinsky, CEO, Numenta
Alan Eustace, SVP, Engineering and Research, Google
Naomi Fine, President & CEO, Pro-Tec Data
Rachel Glaser COO/CFO, Reunion.com
Carl Guardino, President and CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group
Andre Haddad, CEO, Shopping.com
Jeff Hawkins, co-Founder Palm, Handspring, and Numenta
David Karnstedt, Investor
Scott Kaspick, Managing Director, Kaspick & Co.
Steve Kirsch, Serial Entrepreneur
John Koza, CEO, Third Millennium
Ross LaJeunesse, Head of State Policy Western US, Google
Gary Lauder, Managing Partner, Lauder Partners Venture Capital
Laura Lauder, General Partner, Lauder Partners Venture Capital
Len Lehman, Investor
John Luongo, Former CEO, Vantive Corporation
Roger McNamee, Managing Director & co-Founder, Elevation Partners
Ken McNeely, President, AT&T California
Michael Moritz, Partner, Sequoia Capital
Susan Packard Orr, CEO, Telosa Software
Randy Pond, Executive Vice President, Cisco Systems
Amy Rao, Founder & CEO, Integrated Archive Systems
Jana Rich, Managing Director, Russell Reynolds
Miriam Rivera, Former Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Google
Dan Rosensweig, Investor
Dan Rubin, Partner, Alloy Ventures
Hilary Schneider, Executive Vice President US Region, Yahoo
Len Shustek, Chairman, Computer History Museum
Jeff Skoll, Former President, eBay Inc.
Stephanie Tilenius, SVP, eBay North America
Joy Weiss, President and CEO, Dust Networks
Steve Westly, former California State Controller & former SVP eBay
Evan Williams, CEO, Twitter

[UPDATED on 11/05/08] In the interest of full disclosure, I am obviously not a supporter of Proposition 8. And, after I wrote this piece and hours before it passed last night, I got married in California under its recent same-sex marriage law, which the initiative has now overturned. It is still legally unclear what that will mean for people like me who married before Proposition 8 was passed, as it is not retroactive; as of now, the marriages remain valid. In any case, please see this disclosure related to me here.

While the group met with polite audiences, most investors I talked to were unenthusiastic about the plan and dubious that Yahoo’s blue-sky hopes would come through. “I think we wanted to give Jerry a hearing, but mostly to save face,” said one investor, in a sentiment that was typical.

What Yahoo (YHOO) was selling, of course, has been a plea for time from shareholders and a way to signal Microsoft (MSFT)–which made an unsolicited bid for the company in the beginning of February–that a price rise was needed to complete the deal. In addition, so far, no alternative offers have panned out.

Thus, last week, Yahoo released information about its future prognosis, saying there would be no surprises for 2008 off guidance, strong gains in revenue and cash flow for 2009 and 2010 and a resulting share price closer to $40, $9 above the original $31 a share–the cash-and-stock offer is actually now worth about $29.50–offered by Microsoft. (See chart.)

Interesting, Microsoft has been unusually silent on Yahoo’s growth predictions, which to me signals: Unimpressed, not inclined to raise its price and increasingly bored waiting for the inevitable call to negotiate.

But that call, I think, will now have to happen–even though I would bet my precious “Beverly Hills 90210″ pilot episode DVD (seen here!) that Microsoft’s Morgan Stanley (MS) bankers and Yahoo’s Goldman Sachs (GS) bankers have been secretly communicating for a while now.

(Morgan to Goldman: “Ignore what the left hand is doing–it will stop gesticulating wildly soon and we can begin bargaining and collect our big fat fees!”)

So do others: “I now give it 14 days,” said one person who has experience in merger back-and-forth Kabuki dances. “There are no more moves to delay this, although you have to give Yahoo credit for its efforts.”

Extra credit even! But is that all there is?

Some at Yahoo do not agree. One person close to the company noted that Yahoo’s situation is like that of financial software maker Intuit (INTU), which was not bought by the software giant in 1994.

“Remember what happened to their deal with Microsoft?” said the person.

Actually, I do. After a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure from Microsoft, Intuit Founder and CEO Scott Cook struck a deal with Microsoft’s Bill Gates in which the company got a 40% premium, or $1.5 billion in Microsoft stock.

That deal was only scuttled, when the Justice Department stepped in and threatened to file suit to stop the union.

Thus, Yahoo’s only hope is the Justice Department, defanged under the Bush administration and with the existence of a major online rival like Google (GOOG) to point to as competition?

It could happen, I guess. But, I would have to say: Count me dubious.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

While he is not exactly minty fresh–in fact, the founder and CEO of Mint is much more circumspect and cool than any 26-year-old I have met recently–Patzer does stand out in a sea of over-touting Web 2.0 entrepreneurs as someone who might actually have created a business with some substance to it.

Rather than offering dopey widgets that let you throw food at each other or yet another version of a social network or the umpteenth music download-share-compare whatever, Mint feels different.

The free Web-based service is aimed at a younger demographic interested in finding a way to manage money better, in learning about their spending habits, in being alerted to unusual activity and even in saving some cash by finding better rates on things like bank accounts and credit cards.

It might sound crazy in these frothy Web times, but the Mountain View, Calif.-based start-up certainly has the potential to be actually useful and relevant to consumers and has a doesn’t-make-me-scoff-out-loud business plan that focuses on lead generation for sponsors.

Mint now claims 100,000 users since its launch last fall and is expanding its features to allow users to track investments, student loans and mortgages soon too.

Mint has not escaped the bubble, of course, having received about $5 million in funding from Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital and a number of prominent angel investors, such as Ron Conway and former Yahoo exec Geoff Ralston. That’s a lot of money for a company with a lot of possible pitfalls.

While there are a few Web competitors, such as Wesabe, the biggest challenge is that Patzer is taking aim at desktop software packages like Intuit’s Quicken and Microsoft’s Money. The pluses of those solutions is that users feel more secure when financial data lives locally than they might loading it up to the Web.

More significantly, giants like Intuit are moving services online too, as with the recent Quicken Online, which makes for a mighty foe to Mint.

Still, Intuit has been woefully slow online and Patzer is obviously nimbler. And he counters that he is using heavy-duty encryption, as well as a number of methods to keep data anonymous, which make the information safe.

Well, we’ll see how it all turns out, as everyone is going to have to battle security concerns and convince people to trust them with important financial information on the Internet. But, it is clear that it is an interesting space to watch.

And, better still, it is–thank you, thank you–not a food fight.

Here is the video I shot with “Mint Guy” Patzer during lunch this past week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Mint was showing off its service a bit: