posted 2007/02/14 at 11:52
Every year on this day I try to write some kind of missive about how Valentine's Day is an artificial holiday concocted by marketers to get people to buy stuff they normally wouldn't buy during a traditionally slow period of the sales year. This is, of course, usually followed by a caveat that I probably wouldn't feel this way if, you know, I actually had someone to share Valentine's Day with. This year, though, I actually feel okay being single right now.
I suppose I'm starting to rethink the whole "You shouldn't need something like Valentine's Day to shower your loved one with gifts" argument. On its surface, yes, it does seem kind of silly that people actually need some big national commercial endeavour to be reminded to do something special for their significant others every once in a while. Given the pace of modern life, though, I think it's understandable why a lot of people simply don't even think about taking the time to do something special with their partner. After all, Christmas (by which I mean the retail perversion of the word, not the Christian holy day) does provide non-Christians like me and my family an opportunity to buy neat stuff for each other, something which just doesn't seem to spontaneously happen the other 364 days of the year. If, by chance, you are one of those people who likes to buy gifts for people out of the blue, I have an Amazon.com wishlist, you know.
My original point in writing something about Valentine's Day this year was that I wanted to mention how some of us on the left, particularly GLBT people, have tried to turn this day into National Right to Marry Day, cutting through the romance that is in the air (or whatever that funky smell is) to remind people of how same-sex couples are still not accorded the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples in 49 of the 50 states. There's one prominent gay activist here in town who always goes downtown with his partner and attempts to file a marriage certificate every year on this day, although maybe this year the snow emergency is going to shut down the city's government buildings. Anyway, I was hoping to point you all to links on the topic, but a Google search on National Right to Marry Day yields all of four results. You would think that for all that the GLBT community wants to make a big deal out of this (especially campus GLBT groups), someone would put together a Website with information on the subject.
Take the quotes off your Google search and you'll find that the majority of people out there are actually calling it "National Freedom To Marry Day".
Ooh, thanks.
Still, you'd think that someone would catch "right to marry" as a potential alternate and link it to National Freedom to Marry Day Websites ...
Why is there a national day for the Right to get married, but not for the Left?
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon