And has the 9th Circuit perhaps hinted that it plans to uphold Walker's decision but in a way that would limit the case's impact to California, the only state that ever let gays get married and then later took that right away from them? The court spent a fair amount of time discussing a 1996 case from Colorado in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a state constitutional amendment that deprived gay people of anti-discrimination protections that Colorado governments previously had extended to them.

A "narrow" ruling against Prop 8 by the 9th Circuit could bring same-sex marriage back to California but possibly thwart Olson, Boies and the American Foundation for Equal Rights' desire to take before the U.S. Supreme Court the proposition that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to get married in all states.