As classes have fully began, there is one thing I have learned so far: the people of UCA love a good wedding.

It seems like every class that I’ve attended has also thrown the question students hate most: “Tell us a little about yourself.” There is always at least one student that mentions being freshly married or engaged. 

Hearing so many people talk about how marriage is so important to them and how it aligns with their personal goals shocked me. As someone who has no plans to get married, I think that marriage is pointless for someone who is LGBTQ+.

The only people I have heard talk about marriage on campus are people who are straight or dating the opposite gender, not someone who is a part of the community. There’s a good reason for this. 

With all the bigotry that marriage brings along with it, I think that a lot of LGBTQ+ people have lost their childhood dreams of having a big wedding with their whole family, especially in Southern states. 

The constant message I have been told since I was a little kid was that “marriage is between a man and a woman,” or if the conservatives want to be “funny,” they throw out the, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Hearing this rhetoric before I even knew what sexuality was affects me to this day. 

Since the idea of marriage really stems from religion, it is tied with homophobic and transphobic rhetoric that no matter how much you may be in love, it does not matter because being gay is “wrong” or a “sin.”

I do not see a point for LGBTQ+ people to get married in a traditional, religious way, even if they are both Christian and queer. Even if your close friends and family are OK with it, and on the small chance you can find a priest to marry you, you are not the couple that marriage is for. 

I do not want to be a part of something that does not support me, my sexuality or my personal beliefs. I think that if I were to get married, I would be ignoring the growing hatred that religion has brought against me and my hypothetical wife. 

To me, just going along and getting married as an LGBTQ+ person shows you do not care about the hate the religious community has against you and that you are supporting the continuous disrespect of getting married in a place that does not welcome you.

While some LGBTQ+ people may not have had many experiences targeted toward their sexuality, that does not mean it is OK to ignore the people who have been discriminated against. 

Even if you grew up in the church and you have found love and acceptance, that does not mean that every church and every queer experience is as accepting as that, in reality, it’s much different. 

Getting married in the church as a queer person is unfortunately something that many of us will not get to take part in because of the homophobic standpoint the church has against us. Why would you want to get married in a place that truly thinks of you and your love as a sin? Who needs a piece of paper saying what your love is worth when in reality the people who are marrying you see no worth in your love?

As a queer person, there is no gain for me to get married. The only thing that I will gain by getting married is a constant pool of hate from the same people and religion that I want to respect and show my love through. Very accepting and loving for a religion that claims to be as much, don’t you think? 

As our generation gets older, I think that there will be fewer homophobic teachings in the church where hopefully getting married as a queer person will not stand for the exact opposite of what you believe in. Who knows, maybe one day being queer won’t label you as a freak or sinful in the church as it does today.