It will now be up to a federal appeals court, and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court, to decide whether Prop. 8's sponsors have legal standing - the right to represent the state's interests in defending one of its laws. Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said the court order was disappointing.

"People on the left and right should both be mourning the fact that the attorney general and the governor are reneging on their oaths of office," Dacus said, arguing that the officials have a sworn duty to defend all state laws.

Schwarzenegger and Brown took a different view in arguments filed with the state court earlier in the day.

The governor, like any other party in a court case, is entitled to decide which rulings to appeal, Schwarzenegger's lawyers said.