With ballots just days away from printing, proponents and opponents of the ballot initiative that would ban gay marriage in the California constitution wrangled over the language that will go before voters Nov. 4.

At a hearing Thursday afternoon before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley, the attorney for the pro-Proposition 8 side said language on the current ballot constitutes a willful attempt to mislead voters into opposing the measure.

Andrew Pugno said that the measure's ballot and summary said the measure would eliminate same-sex marriage. That equated to loaded language, he said.

"This is a very brief measure, 14 words," Pugno said, referring to what his side originally submitted to the state when it was a proposed initiative that hadn't yet qualified for the ballot. "It speaks for itself."

He later noted that apart from Proposition 8's opponents and the state attorney general's office, which wrote the title and summary, no one was defending the language as neutral.

"The courts ought to give deference to the attorney general in a close call," he said. "This is not a close call." Allowing that language to stay on ballots the voters will see in November, he said, would call into question the legitimacy of the vote.

But Jennifer Rockwell, an attorney representing Attorney General Jerry Brown and the California Secretary of State's office, said changing the language would change a reality that even Proposition 8's supporters acknowledge: approval of the measure would eliminate the right to gay marriage.

"No case law suggests that the petitioners can reword the summary to make their points first, and make other points secondary," Rockwell said.

And while Proposition 8's supporters have objected to the use of the word "eliminate" in the title, Rockwell said, that term was used in previous ballot measures where the title and summary were also written by the state attorney general at the time.

The two sides, along with Robin Johansen, an attorney working for the anti-Prop. 8 campaign, also sparred over language in the pro and con arguments and rebuttals in the measure.

That language had to do with whether defeat of the measure would lead to a mandate for teaching about gay marriages in California schools, and whether domestic partnerships conferred the same rights as marriages.

Frawley stated at the beginning of each argument that he was generally disinclined to grant the petitions brought by each attorney, save adding a word of clarification here and there.

Rockwell noted that in at least one case, doing so would violate state Elections Code on the upper limit of the number of words allowed in a ballot argument.

"I've got a way to fix that," Johansen said to laughs from court observers, adding she wanted large portions of language in one of the arguments eliminated.

Frawley said he would issue his ruling Friday. Ballots for the Nov. 4 election will begin printing within the next week.