My Queer Valentine
(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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I’m sure you’ve heard the theories people have about Valentine’s Day: it’s overrated, it’s a commercial holiday, you don’t need a day to celebrate love, and the list goes on…
Honestly, and I am not ashamed to say it, I have always wanted to spend Valentine’s Day with my lover. As a homosexual person, my love is not celebrated in my daily life. I hide it, I lie about it, I get cursed for it, and I’m made to feel guilty to have it. So I’ve always wanted to celebrate this holiday, do all the regular things heterosexual couples get to do every day; go out on real dates, express my love to a girl I have liked for a while, have romantic dinners, enjoy intimate moments with my girlfriend. Of course my love for the other person is so much bigger and more meaningful than these romantic and cheesy gestures that don’t really matter. Only they do. I want to have the choice. I would like to have the possibility to go out on romantic dinners, exchange candy, flowers and gifts, and celebrate Valentine’s if I wanted to. I would like to be able to go out without having to pretend that she’s my friend, be able to hold her hand when I feel like it, and look into her eyes without fear.
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 — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
Well sure, if love, irrespective of its kind, was accepted and celebrated in our society, then maybe we didn’t really need a Valentine’s Day. But when the society you live in condemns your love if it doesn’t fit certain criteria and you’re constantly obliged to hide it or deny it, then Valentine’s Day should be a day to remind everybody that this love has the right to exist and to be admired.
Sometimes even the personal is political. For me, celebrating Valentine’s is a political statement. It’s demanding my right to love the person I want, and to live this love the way I please. To us, people who are denied love, Valentine’s Day is political.
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