I\'m trying to follow this example on how to validate credentials. However, it uses asp: controls for the login form.
If I were to use html controls instead so CSS s
Add runat="server" and id="your_id" and you should have access to them. For example:
<input type="text" value="Username" class="input-text autoclear" 
   runat="server" id="UserName" />
<input type="password" value="Password" class="input-text autoclear" 
   runat="server" id="Password"/>
Then you can access the values like this:
Membership.ValidateUser(UserName.Value, Password.Value)
You can access them from code behind by adding runat="server" on the html elements.
http://www.w3schools.com/aspnet/aspnet_refhtmlcontrols.asp
The below link has an example of how you can do this
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa478973.aspx
Add id and runat server attributes to the input tag (see below) 
<input type="text" value="Username" class="input-text autoclear"  id="Username" runat="server"/>
<input type="password" value="Password" class="input-text autoclear" id="Password" runat="server"/>
You also need to change Text to Value in your code:
protected void LoginButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // Validate the user against the Membership framework user store
    if (Membership.ValidateUser(Username.Value, Password.Value))
    {
        // Log the user into the site
        FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(UserName.Value, RememberMe.Checked);
    }
    // If we reach here, the user's credentials were invalid
    InvalidCredentialsMessage.Visible = true;
}
You can also add a html checkbox for RememberMe 
<input id="RememberMe" type="checkbox" runat="server" value ="RememberMe"/>
Now you can check the checked states by calling RememberMe.Checked