Nixon was president. A TV cigarette-ad ban went into effect. "Imagine" and "Stairway to Heaven" were on their way to musical immortality. The Colts won Super Bowl V. The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers. Germany's Willy Brandt won the Nobel Peace Prize. Disney World opened. The Oscar for Best Picture went to Patton. The Apollo 15 astronauts rode a dune buggy on the moon. Homosexuality wouldn't be taken off the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders for another two years.

Also in 1971: Californians Derence Kernick and Ed Watson were mutually twitterpated over each other. Forty years later they still are. And they would very very very much like to get married, please. Now. Because time is running out, as Ed explains in a letter to the 9th Circuit Court:

[T]he California Supreme Court denied a motion to speed up the Prop 8 trial. They're going to take their summer recess and come back in around 6 months or so. It must be nice for them.

Thing is, I am 78 years old, and I have Alzheimer's disease. I have been with my partner, Derence, for over 40 years. And if the courts drag this out for months and months, I fear I will, God forbid, lose the ability to recognize my beloved Derence when he gets on his knee to propose to me.

I can't afford that, and Derence deserves better. That's why I agreed to be named in Courage Campaign's amicus curiae letter to the 9th Circuit, asking that the stay be lifted so I can at least have my dignity on our wedding day.

Roughly 18,000 same-sex couples got legally married in California before Prop. 8 snuffed out that right for others. 18,000 married gay couples would certainly be enough to produce the kind of catastrophic damage to the "fabric of society" that the right-wingers constantly get their bloomers in a twist over. It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that California hasn't suffered because of gay marriage---not one bit. And it won?t suffer one bit if the court-imposed "stay" is lifted and couples like Ed and Darence can tie the knot.

Yesterday the New York Times editorial page weighed in on the issue:

The stay should never have been granted in the first place. Applying traditional legal criteria, the extraordinary relief of a stay is only warranted when the applicant makes a strong showing of likely success on the merits and of irreparable injury in the absence of a stay---two arguments that cannot be satisfied here. ? Every day same-sex couples are denied their right to marry is another day of injustice for them and their families.

Adds Ezra Klein in The Washington Post on Ed and Darence's situation:

You?ll never see a better example of the fierce urgency of now. ? I?m getting married this fall, and I want to be clear: I don?t view these men as a threat to my upcoming marriage. I view them as a model for it.

Please co-sign Ed Watson's letter to the Court here. And let's hope someone there has the presence of mind to recognize a slam-dunk decision when they see one and lift the stay.