Answer

Should I Attend a Same-Sex Wedding or Reception?

Someone you love has invited you, and whatever you decide will be read as a statement about them. That is a hard place to stand, and the fact that you are taking it seriously is to your credit rather than a sign that something is wrong with you.

The Church has not issued a rule, so this is genuinely yours to decide with the Lord. What can be said clearly is what a wedding is. Those present are witnesses. The question is not whether you love the person, which is not in doubt, but whether you can stand as a witness to something you believe God has defined differently.

Eternal Truths

Marriage is defined by God, and that definition is what the invitation asks you to weigh. The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God. That is the belief the ceremony asks you to witness.

Love and agreement are not the same thing, and the Church says both at once. The Church teaches that members are to treat everyone with love and kindness while holding to the doctrine of marriage (Same-Sex Attraction). President Russell M. Nelson taught that there is a strong connection between God’s love and His laws, and that we care about His laws because we feel the depth of His love for His children (“The Love and Laws of God”).

Where the Lord has not given a rule, He gives revelation. You are expected to study it out in your own mind and then ask, and to act on the answer you receive (Doctrine and Covenants 9:7-9). The absence of a policy here is not an oversight. It is because the right answer depends on a relationship only you and the Lord know.

What Can Make This Confusing?

Attendance is being offered as the proof of love, so declining reads as its withdrawal. That pressure is real and worth naming rather than dismissing. And if it is your son or daughter, the calculation is genuinely different. A parent has a relationship to protect that a colleague does not, and many faithful parents attend for exactly that reason.

Questions to Think About

• What would my presence be saying, and what would my absence be saying?
• Have I asked the Lord about this particular relationship, or only about the principle?
• Whatever I decide, what am I going to do for the next ten years?

What You Can Do

Decide, then decide the larger thing: that one day will not become the whole relationship. If you go, it does not settle what you believe. If you decline, say why once, kindly, without a case attached, and then keep turning up for birthdays, hospital visits and ordinary Tuesdays. The essay behind this answer works through both paths in more detail.

Jesus Christ held perfect love and perfect truth together without dropping either, and He can show you how to do that with this person.