You can use a combination of radio buttons and labels to achieve this affect.

See my pen here: http://codepen.io/iest/pen/ujnlJ

There's a neat trick to use the + selector (adjacent selector) along with the input's checked attribute.

Plus the radio button still gets checked, so it's still a valid form.

And no, you don't need javascript to achieve this :)

I believe the only way to achieve this in pure css would be to use radio buttons and style them. You can use this CodePen as a starting point:

http://codepen.io/jesseGlacken/pen/oaiyv

It would be cleaner and faster to use js/jquery to achieve this effect.

You're trying to keep the button in a permanent active state through css and it's not possible. It'll always change it's color back.

That's exactly where you should use javascript/query.