Should I Attend My Homosexual Friend’s Wedding?

Is it OK to attend my friends' wedding if they are gay or lesbian?

That’s a question that sooner or later most of us will have to answer for ourselves. It’s difficult on an interpersonal level—you want to be able to maintain a relationship. Perhaps you are praying for these friends or family members. Perhaps you want to share the gospel or you have shared the gospel, and you really want them to know that you love them and you want to have a relationship with them. And yet the answer clearly needs to be no. That may break our heart or it may harm the relationship, but the answer needs to be no.

And that’s because of what we really think about marriage. Not only to think that marriage from the Bible is between a man and a woman, but to think about what are we doing when we go to a marriage ceremony. When the pastor says “before God and these witnesses” he is speaking to something of the role of the congregation. And when you receive that invitation in the mail it probably says something like, “So and so invites you to join them as they celebrate the wedding of their son or their daughter.”

So we are going quite explicitly to help solemnize and celebrate this union. It isn’t going to somebody’s band recital. It’s not going to somebody’s track meet. It’s not going to your gay friend’s performance or recital. It's going to a wedding ceremony where your presence there is to be among the witnesses who say: "We give our approval to this and we join in celebrating this union." And that is something, as Christians, that we just can’t celebrate and be faithful to the Bible as disciples of Jesus Christ.

And that may be difficult for the relationship. And no doubt, to some people, that non-acceptance will be equated with not loving them or hatred or disdaining them as a person. But then we simply need to try to explain that that is not how we feel, just as when they reject our understanding of marriage we are trying not to take it as a personal assault to our very person. That’s very difficult. And yet, to be biblical and faithful—and to really be a witness to the truth of the gospel and the truth of the Bible—we have to say no to this one.