Be Just, My Valentine

I have a 7 year old daughter.  To call her "percocious" is an appropriate assessment. to be fair, I don't know if she's smarter than most 7 year olds, but she is much smarter than I was at 7, so I am sticking with it.  My husband and I have a policy whereby we always answer her questions as truthfully as possilble.  The secondary policy of only answering the question she asked, without embellishment, has saved us from many, many uncomfortable situations.  Every question she asks is a near time-bomb for us, and a revelation about how much we take for granted, and without question.

Last week she asked me about the origins of Valentine's Day.  I was doing the dishes, and a flood of half memories from a childhood lesson washed over me.  It's about a saint, I think, I said.  His birthday, maybe.  I think he went to jail and was marytered there.  Something about standing for love, or something like that.  I tumbled the list out to my daughter, she listened and tried to keep up.  "Hallmark makes a ton of money on it now."  "How did he stand up for love?"  My daughter, for all of her candor, is frequently also very litteral.  I wasn't so lucky this time.  She wanted to know what he did.  Off to Google with me.

What I found a couple of trustworthy pages was the story of a monk named Valentinus.  This is from Wikipedia:

St. Valentine's Day began as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. The most popular martyrology associated with Saint Valentine was that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire; during his imprisonment, he is said to have healed the daughter of his jailer Asterius.

From the History Channel: 

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.

I added the italics.  I love the idea that Valentine was martyred, in part, for seeing that the government should not interfere with love.  It would seem that this particular bit of information is not just timely for the holiday, but also as we look around the word and directly into the faces of inequalty as it relates to gay marriage. In 2013, we have self professed educators jockeying for a straight only prom because of her religion.  We have a possible pope successor who has defended anti-gay bills like Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill.  At this point, it is as though the origin of Valentine's Day has been lost.  Remember when it was all about love?  And that meant enough that you could be martyered for choosing it above state decree?

Not all is lost.  France decision about same sex marriage is a pretty good reason to celebrate Valentine's day, if you ask me.  Let's do this too, America.  The alternative is bleak, and not in the best interest of our spirit as a nation, or as a people.  Anti-gay sentiment is the last socially exceptable form of prejudice.  America, be my Valentine in the spirit of St. Valentine.  Let's stand for love, too. Please don't give me one more difficult thing to explain to my 7 year old.