“Watching these two dads navigate this—one, it seems to have been successful. One not so much. But both are glad they walked their daughter down the aisle,” Stanley explained.
Causey called the story “really powerful,” while Stanley said it was “inspiring.”
How Butterfield and Yuan Advised Parents on Attending a Gay Wedding
The podcast Stanley referenced is titled “There’s No Such Thing as a Gay Person” and was published by Cook on Jan. 20, 2022.
During the two-hour long podcast, Cook asked Butterfield and Yuan a question he said he frequently receives.
Cook said, “I get this [question] all the time from people. They are really sincere and they are very difficult situations to be in.” Cook then asked, ”What do you do if you’re a parent and your daughter wants you to go to her gay wedding?”
As Stanley stated, after a five-second pause, Yuan answered by first replying, “Well, you know, you could just say ‘I have COVID. I got the Omicron.’”
Yuan’s answer, which appears to have been in jest, made them all laugh. Yuan then provided a sincere answer. “You know, I think that it’s really important to—I always look to Scripture, always. So that’s always my authority. I gotta go there.”
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After explaining how the Bible begins and ends with a wedding and how Scripture defines marriage as “something very important to God,” Yuan said that he “personally would not be able to go to the ceremony…because I know that’s not something that God would bless.”
Yuan added that he “would clearly articulate and look for ways to reach out and to continue that relationship even though they might not want me to” and mentioned how often children will cut the parents off from their lives. However, he tells parents that “we’re only responsible for how we act and respond [and] not responsible for their actions.”
“So they may have cut you off,” he said, advising parents to tell their children, “I’m sorry that you feel that way. I’m sorry that you feel like you have to cut me off, but I’m gonna to keep loving you. Whether you accept it, then that’s not on me.”
Butterfield replied by quoting Luke 14:26, in which Jesus indicates that following him could require hating one’s own family, adding, “It is simply a horrible thing to be divided between your Lord and your child, but the Lord Jesus Christ has already spoken.”
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She explained that when Jesus uses the word “hate” in Luke 14:26, he’s referring to a ranking. “You love your children less than you love your Lord. Because if you don’t love your Lord the most, you will destroy those people you think you love with a predatory kind of sin that’s going to just infect them.”
“But that’s the the conclusion,” she added, encouraging parents to go first to their elders and pastors and to pray and fast. She advised parents to “give yourself at least six months, because prayer does many things. One of the things it does is it strengthens you to receive the answer that God will give you.”
“The Christian life is not a multiple choice exam. There’s spiritual integrity that goes with taking up your cross,” Butterfield concluded.
