PINE BLUFFS - Almost 35 years ago as a father of four, I started
a family tradition or custom, of sending a Valentine to my wife and
each of my girls in time for St. Valentine's Day on February 14th.
Later, when my son married, I expanded the practice to include my
wonderful daughter-in-law.
Recently, I've been thinking about the secularization of this
holiday. No one seems to be aware anymore of its religious
significance, or that the holiday was originally named after at
least one and possibly three real persons. In fact, Saint
Valentine’s Day has moved from a time of expressing sentiments of
love, affection, and friendship, to crude, vulgar expressions of sex
and blatant commercialization. To see what I mean, consider some of
the advertising that occurred just this year, as we approached the
big day. An article by Gregory Solman, former West Coast editor of
Adweek, described what’s been happening. I’ve included his entire
piece in a footnote, below.
Because I think what the secularists have done with Saint
Valentine's Day is deplorable, and because Christians have
apparently, perhaps unknowingly, let it happen, I searched for and
found a description of who these mysterious Saints were, when they
lived and died, why we actually celebrate this holiday, and its
religious significance to Christians worldwide.
Saint Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of
both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. Who was Saint Valentine
and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the
Christian religions recognize at least three legends about the real
Saint Valentine. Musty historical vestiges from a lost age? No. The
Saint Valentine legends clearly refer to heroic men who stood on
principal, and who are worthy of emulation in today’s world.
Three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, appear in
martyrologies under the date February 14. One is described as a
priest in Rome, another as bishop of Interamna Nahars (modern Terni,
capital city of Terni Province in the Umbria region of Central
Italy). These two men both suffered in the second half of the third
century and were buried on the Flaminian Way but at different
distances from the city. In William of Malmesbury’s time, what was
known to the ancients as the Flaminian Gate of Rome, and is now the
Porta del Popolo, was called the Gate of Saint Valentine. The name
seems to have been taken from a small church dedicated to the saint
which was in the immediate neighborhood. A third Valentine
apparently lived and suffered in Africa, but little is known about
him.
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.
Another story suggests that Valentine may have been killed for
attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they
were often beaten and tortured.
According to yet another legend, Valentine actually sent the first
'valentine' greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that
Valentine fell in love with a young girl — who may have been his
jailor's daughter — who visited him during his confinement. Before
his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed
'From your Valentine,' an expression that is still in use today.
Although the accuracy of the Valentine legends is murky, the stories
certainly emphasize their appeal as sympathetic, heroic, and
romantic figures, who suffered and died for a cause. It's no
surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most
popular saints in England and France.
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of seeing secularist efforts
like this one going unchallenged. They’ve almost completely
succeeded in removing any religious meaning from this holiday, all
because of the feeling in some quarters (secular media, some
publishing houses, Madison Avenue advertising, to name three) that
to express any religious sentiment in the public forum might offend
a few. Talk about the tyranny of the minority! Their determined
attack to remove Christmas from our society almost succeeded, and
would have succeeded if it weren't for groups like the Alliance
Defense Fund, which mounted a counter-attack in the courts and
schools to stop that effort in its tracks.
I think we should mount another counter-attack; this one to 'take
back' the St. Valentine's Day holiday. What about you? If you agree,
the first thing you can do is to refer all your relatives and
friends to the site of this article, with instructions to read it
and e-mail it to everyone on their email lists.
The second action you might take is to write or e-mail the
advertisers mentioned in Mr. Solman’s article (those who advertise
on That’s So Raven, and that Vermont Teddy Bear ad might be good
places to start), telling them you disapprove and urging them not to
repeat their disgusting ads next year.
At least, these actions might put a small dent in the secularist’s
effort to turn a basically Christian religious holiday into yet
another salacious, commercial non-event.
1
by Gregory Solman, former West Coast editor of Adweek
February 14, 2009. St. Valentine’s Day No
Longer: How inappropriate commercials have cheapened an important
holiday. By: Gregory Solman.
“When what was once called Saint Valentine’s Day ends at midnight,
it will at least mean blessed relief from a barrage of disgusting
commercials.'
A relentlessly airing spot for Vermont Teddy Bear — disrupting Fox
News every night, every ten minutes — starts with a man wearing a
T-shirt in an office cubicle (note the double-down male stereotype)
who sees “Valentine’s Day!!” on his calendar. Cue the Psycho
shower-murder music (given the female behavior we are about to
suffer, perhaps the date annually drives him to consider mutilating
his beloved). “And you know what comes right after Valentine’s Day?”
a nudge-nudging announcer says, “Valentine’s night!”
“The commercial makes clear that the outmoded “day” nonsense of
tender poetic gestures and corny but- sincere proposals is merely an
annoying means to the salacious end of sexual conquest. The spot
cuts to an office scene with stupid-looking men sheepishly poking
heads above their carrels as they overhear insipid female coworkers
— having been delivered teddy bears sporting tattoos, boxer shorts,
and the name Horny Devil Bear — squealing with orgasmic jouissance
and calling out double entendres of the sixth-grade variety: “So
much bigger than I thought!” “Oh, I could just kiss it and kiss it!”
“It is at this point, perhaps, that any remnants of the Roosevelt
family should sue. The announcer tries to convince “guys” that this
toy will get “a great response.” The announcer says that, unlike
flowers, the Vermont Teddy Bear “keeps giving and giving.” T-shirt
man literally licks his lips in a close-up, the better to keep the
drool from dripping on his Chia pet and Dilbert tack-ups. The spot
ends with one of the gals in the office porno-pool saying, “I can’t
wait to give him my surprise!”
“A spot for Pajama Grams starts worse — with women parading around
in their undies, missing nothing but the fireman’s pole and
hackneyed razzmatazz — but at least settles into ancient artifacts
of troglodyte romance: the ol’
crackling-fireplace-and-champagne-on-ice chestnut. Still, a female
voiceover utters the debauchery pitch right up front: “This
Valentine’s Day there’s only one gift guaranteed to get women to
take their clothes off!”
“Is that what St. Valentine’s Day has come to? Like the
commercialization of Christmas and the candyfication of Easter, has
the feast remembering a 3rd-century priest — martyred under the
emperor Claudius despite his selfless prayers leading to the
restored sight of his captor’s daughter—been reduced to mail-order
seduction by a nation of salivating Caligulas?
“Even some professional marketers don’t like it much. In 2007, I
noted in Adweek’s blog, Adfreak, the airing of sexual-lubricant ads
during a Saturday morning USA Network showing of The Breakfast Club.
To exploit Disney’s then-recent Pirates of the Caribbean release,
otherwise-legitimate cable networks were accepting ads for an adult
film, Digital Playground’s Pirates 2, another new low. Responding to
the blog item, a media executive commented that a so-called
“scatter” media buy could mean just that — practically random
airings of commercial inventory at any time of day. Thus the
television industry no longer even wears the micro-thin prophylactic
of “appropriate hours” for commercials advertising adults-only
products.
These commercials slither by unobstructed by content-blocking TV
chips. “’KY on cartoon day, Hostel billboards on the way to the
library,’ an ad-industry blogger responded. ‘Ifyou’re over thirty
I’m betting this isn’t the way you grew up. Why can’t my kids have
what we had?’ A mother of 13, 12, and 5-year-old girls added that
That’s So Raven had exposed her kids to sexual dysfunction ads. She
added: ‘The other day they had male friends, same ages, over, and
they tried to loudly talk through a feminine hygiene commercial on
the Disney Channel. But it didn’t work. The girls were totally
embarrassed.” Naturally, another marketer soon thereafter accused
his colleagues of prudishness and favoring censorship.
“With all due respect to Judge Bork, TV advertising is galloping
towards Gomorrah. The advertising profession — which once considered
showing people brushing their teeth vulgar — daily diminishes itself
with genital-herpes ads suggesting that the fulfillment of women’s
liberation lies in safely servicing multiple partners, and
erectile-dysfunction spots featuring men sprouting devil horns to
Tex Avery–like wolf whistles. Recent spots for “male enhancement”
drugs use Andy Griffith–style whistling and tawdry, rank-amateur
spokeswomen.
“All the tackiness reinforces the larger malady; that those
commercials are for products once only hawked in the back pages of
magazines targeted toward indiscriminate youth and pitiable men with
arrested development. The heart starts to ache in earnest.”
Anthony Joseph Sacco, Sr., a writer, licensed private investigator, author of two novels; The China Connection, and Little Sister Lost, and a biography, Echoes in the Wind, holds degrees from Loyola University of Maryland and the University of Maryland Law School. His articles have appeared in the Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, Voices for the Unborn, the Catholic Review, WREN Magazine and the Wyoming Catholic Register. E-mail him at anthonyjsacco@hotmail.com, visit his website at http://www.saccoservices.com, and his blog at http://anthonyjsaccosr.townhall.com.