Prop 8, again

I watched the recording of the California Supreme Court's recent hearing on Prop 8, the state Constitutional amendment that outlawed same sex marriages. The legal issue this time is a question from the United States Ninth Circuit court asking if under California law the proponents of Prop 8 can defend the law in court since the governor and state attorney general said that Prop 8 was unconstitutional and refused to defend it. It was interesting to watch. The Prop 8 proponents argue that if they are unable to defend propositions the governor and attorney general can essentially nullify a law in federal court by refusing to defend it. I can see their point, and I think that the court will agree with them. But in my opinion the legal argument by Ted Olson, the anti-Prop 8 lawyer, was much better. The California Constitution specifically says that the people have legislative power through the initiative process to propose and pass laws, as happened with Prop 8, but there is no executive branch power to defend the law in court. That power is expressly given only to the governor and attorney general. Olson argued that giving that power to the proponents would violate the separation of powers in the Constitution. It will be interesting to see what the court decides. Ultimately, even if the court says that the proponents do have "standing" to defend the law under California law, that does not mean that the meet the federal standards to defend it in federal court. If they do not have standing, Prop 8 would be unconstitutional and marriage equality would return to California. That would be great, but I really want all Americans to have marriage equality. My best case scenario would be for this case to reach the US Supreme Court and have Prop 8 and all laws that forbid marriage equality declared unconstitutional. Then I might feel like a full citizen with all the rights that other Americans have.