A beautiful thought just occurred to me. SCOTUS agreed to take the case but I'm still certain that they don't really want to get involved on this whole issue. I was thinking *now that there are only the private parties involved in the case* that their ruling would be that the intervenors don't have standing and they would dismiss the suit on those grounds. It would leave Prop 8 dumped unless and until California could pass it again and start things over but would be at least a temporary resolution. But it occurs to me that the Court could conceivably make an even more noncommittal ruling. They could say that the State really ought to have stayed involved, that it was improper of it to not defend the product of its system for public democracy, and insist that the entire thing be reargued, remanding the case back down to the 9th Circuit. They could keep the case going for another two or three years!