Regardless of where you fall on the same-sex marriage issue, it should be obvious that campaigns shouldn?t be forced to give up their internal communications to help their opponents score political points.

That strong-arm tactic is exactly what opponents of Proposition 8, California?s marriage amendment passed by 52 percent of voters in November 2008, are now using.

As I write in an American Spectator column today, advocates have argued before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that religious and conservative groups should be forced to cough up private, internal communications from a successful campaign last year to protect traditional marriage in the Golden State.

The San Francisco Chronicle now reports that the appellate court will find that a federal judge who sided with liberal activists on this issue ?probably violated the Constitution?:

The Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco suspended the order that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued in October against backers of Prop. 8, which state voters approved in November 2008.

Walker said lawyers for two same-sex couples and a gay-rights group were entitled to see internal memos and e-mails between Yes on 8 strategists to look for evidence that the campaign had sought to exploit anti-gay bias. Such evidence would strengthen the plaintiffs’ claim that the ballot measure was discriminatory and thus unconstitutional.

Prop. 8 sponsors argued that their discussions were constitutionally protected and that orders such as Walker’s would discourage candid communications in political campaigns.

The campaign against backers of Proposition 8 has become nothing but a witch hunt. Activists are trying to use the courts to punish their political opponents. Not a new tactic, but a despicable one nonetheless. So despicable, in fact, that the uber-liberal 9th Circuit can see it.