I know the default answer is to "accept" the daughter's position on being gay as loving parents, but is it okay to discuss it and maybe show the daughter that she's actually not gay after all? Or will that be perceived as, "My parents don't love and accept me for being gay."? She might have friends who push that stance about the parents, which could cause harmful division between parents and daughter. Maybe she just saw some things on social media about it and declared it without truly understanding it or thinking it through. How should parents respond to a young teen if this comes up, especially knowing that other kids are egging her on and celebrating her newly-declared stance?
(Un)fortunately, depending on your perspective, I have first-hand experience with this issue, albeit my son was in his late 20s when he came to us with the news. He had been testing the waters for several months with us, so I knew something was up, but he's very clever and was well able to portray his concerns as being general, and not personal.
In fact, it all came about because he had a friend who was unabashedly gay and was suffering greatly from depression related directly, it seemed, to affairs of the heart. My son had known him for some time, had seen the decline in his mental health, and was moved with profound compassion for him. He told us that he was confused that he could feel so much concern for someone without being romantically attached.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I had learned many years before that God was very much in the business of developing and improving relationships and that, as a rule, I was not. I believe I meant well but I had some proclivities bred and raised into me that could be impulsive and harsh at times.
But I also recognized that my son was headed down a long, hard road, and that I had to have extraordinary grace to, at worst, not inflame matters.
Very fortunately, Praise God, I was in something of a revival at the time, so I was praying effectually and somewhat fervently on a regular basis, and so I lost (by all accounts) no composure at the time the boy broke the news.
I can't overstate how providential this was because my son is as stubborn as the day is long and had he detected any hypocrisy, bigotry, or intolerance in my reaction he would have instantly steeled himself against any influence I might have exercised in the matter.
But, as it turns out, he slowly reached his own conclusion, at the (uncharacteristically) gentle urging of his mother, that his friend had, after all, exploited his emotions in an attempt to recruit him for the ranks of his militant, selfish ideology. As soon as he suggested to his friend that he might have been mistaken about his own feelings, that friend dropped him like a hot potato.
All throughout the crisis, I prayed like I had never prayed before, made small talk with him, and smiled with every bit of benevolence God was pleased to so graciously grant me.
A parent who has to deal with such a frightening development needn't bother taking much counsel with men. Every bit of advice I got was at variance with what God led me to do as a result of casting my care hopelessly upon Him, alone.
I have seen God work many miracles like this, and I can say without reservation that He works in direct proportion to the extent to which all parties involved will submit to His will.
The intercessor must pray, pray, pray.
And then pray some more.
When I couldn't find words I would bury myself in the Psalms and promises of God.
There is no better way.
Nothing is apparently more helpless, yet really more invincible, than the soul that feels its nothingness and relies wholly on the merits of the Saviour. By prayer, by the study of His word, by faith in His abiding presence, the weakest of human beings may live in contact with the living Christ, and He will hold them by a hand that will never let go.--Ministry Of Healing, p. 182