For scores of gay and lesbian couples hoping to say “I do” this week, the emergency stay granted by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals means, “no, you don’t” — at least not for several more months while the appeal is fast-tracked. Oral arguments are scheduled to begin the first week of December, which is pretty fast by legal standards.

But another issue has emerged that needs to be addressed first, and could make the whole case “dead on arrival”.

“The silver lining in this very devastating ruling for gay rights advocates is that the court is asking the applicants, what is your standing, why do you have the right to bring this appeal since the governor and the attorney general of California have both abandoned this case and they’re not going to appeal,” says Fox News legal analyst Steve Clark.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker allowed the authors of Proposition 8 to defend the voter-approved ban at trial. But in his ruling, said an appeal may hinge on getting Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or Attorney General Jerry Brown to join the defense team, which is highly unlikely.

“We have a right here, constitutional right, to marry,” says Brown, who has filed motions calling for same sex weddings to resume in California ASAP.

With or without Brown, Proposition 8 lawyers argue their existing legal standing shouldn’t be questioned now.

“If the Prop 8 proponents don’t have standing, that means that millions of California voters have no one to represent or defend them, especially since the attorney general and the governor didn’t do their job in this case, so we feel very confident about this standing issue and believe, at the end of the day, the 9th Circuit is going to agree that we do have standing,” says Austin Nimocks, with the Alliance Defense Fund.

But if the court rules that they don’t, and unless a county, or some state entity gets on board, it’s possible the whole case could end on a technicality, because the proper defendants refuse to challenge the verdict.