> Basically, after Proposition 8 passed, the State decided not to defend it in court, and higher courts ruled no one else had standing to defend it, so the challengers essentially won by default.
True.
> That was a bad thing.
I disagree. A litigant who has lost should be able to decide not to appeal, including where that litigant is the State.
> One of the main purposes of the initiative process is to allow the people to bypass the State.
Incorrect. It exists to allow the people to exercise the legislative power of the State (which they have, via the State Constitution, expressly reserved so that they can do so), not to bypass the State.
> It makes the initiative process a joke if the State can effectively void an initiative by simply deciding not to defend it.
They did defend it, vigorously, at the trial level. They decided not to appeal that decision after they lost at the trial level. Which is a rather common thing for litigants to do: appeals are expensive.
But the Ninth Circuit, after a ruling by the California Supreme Court, allowed the proponents to carry the appeal anyway, and the Ninth Circuit struck Prop. 8 down on the merits anyway.
The Supreme Court rules that the Ninth Circuit erred in granting standing to the proponents, but Prop 8 lost on the merits, not standing both at the trial and appellate level.
> The right was is the way we did it here in Washington.
Sure, its always better for a state to provide equal protection of the law itself rather than to be forced to by the federal judiciary. But the wrong in the latter isn't in the federal judiciary acting, or in state officials accepting that action before the appeals have reached the Supreme Court level, but in the State -- whether through elected officials or the people at large -- failing to provide equal protection of the laws in the first place.