Happy Valentine's Day

Saturday, Feb. 14, 2004 - 8:21 a.m.

Today is Valentine's Day, an amalgamation of the traditions associated with the feast of Lupercalia, which acknowledges Juno, the goddess of women and marriage, and until 1969, it was set aside as St. Valentine's Day, to honor Valintinus, a third-century priest who secretly married couples during the time that Christianity was banned. Nowadays it's just called Valentine's Day, and the origins have all but been forgotten with the advent of the commercialism that surrounds this day.

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I suppose by now you've heard what's going on in my fair city -- we've taken the plunge, as it were, and our city is issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

From the news ticker:

Gay and lesbian couples planned to celebrate Valentine's Day with weddings at City Hall as officials continued to defy state law by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex partners. The nationally unprecedented wedding march began Thursday morning and by late Friday, 665 same-sex couples had been wed. The weddings were expected to continue throughout President's Day weekend as city officials try to accommodate couples that have come from all over the country to be married.

I can think of no other way to celebrate this day than to legitimately acknowledge the thousands of people who have lived together for years, raised families, and made a home where two together become bigger than one.

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Love is not able to be defined by traditional means. I can think of examples of what love is and isn't. Love makes a trail through a person's life, like the quarks that make the quantum leaps; we don't actually see the quarks themselves, but we see the trails they leave as they move. We see love's influence -- and in our hearts, we simply know it's there.

Happy Valentine's Day to the people I love.

If you were not in my life, my world would be so much sadder.

Thank you for being so good to me.

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