Source: Seattle Times, KIRO Newsradio
Seattle Times catches up with the controversy that a Redmond pastor has worked to create at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie by interviewing former student Neil Lequia.

As a gay-rights activist, he's helping to organize a news conference in support of students participating in the national Day of Silence, an event meant to highlight the silence gay students say they often must maintain at school, the Times reports.

As a gay teenager growing up in the Snoqualmie Valley, he remembers "the bullies," popular, athletic boys vamping in the hall and pretending to flirt with him. He was part of the school's first Day of Silence in 2006, in part to call attention to the harassment.

Nineteen now, and two years out of high school, Lequia told the Times, "Even being in the closet was hard there."

While the Day of Silence will be observed at more than 200 high schools around the state, Mount Si is expected to be the flash point for protests and counterprotests.

Hutcherson and his wife took out a full page ad in Wednesday's Snoqualmie Valley Record that called for 1,000 prayer warriors to gather outside the front of the school Friday morning.

"If they want to do something, fine," Hutcherson told KIRO Radio's Dori Monson  yesterday. "Just make it before school or after school, like the Christians have to do. If they want to meet, they meet before school."

Students who participate in the day remain silent in recognition of students who remain silent about their sexual orientation because of fear of prejudice or retaliation.

Some parents and community members who support the Day of Silence say they'll gather before school and stand quietly as students arrive.

A coalition of gay-rights groups, including the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, for which Lequia works, and the Safe Schools Coalition, have organized the news conference later in the morning across town to talk about the need for respect and a safe environment for gay students.

Inside the school, about 200 students have taken the training administrators required to ensure the Day of Silence doesn't disrupt classes or coerce anyone into participating, as critics charge happened in the first two years the event was held here.

As a devout Mormon from an extended Snoqualmie Valley family, Lequia resisted his own sexual identity. He fasted and prayed for his homosexuality to be removed from his body, he said. By the time he was a sophomore in high school, he said, he was eating about four meals a week.

Lequia was in the audience at one of the School Board meetings when an uncle questioned why an entire day was devoted to gays. A cousin said he'd left Mount Si "because of gays." Neither acknowledged him.

"We need this controversy to show we need a change," Lequia said. "As much hurt and damage this has caused me, it's for the better of Mount Si."

Full article: Ex-student returns to Mount Si to support controversial gay-rights Day of Silence | Seattle Times
Pastor to protest day of silence at Mount Si High School | MyNorthwest (KIRO)