A San Francisco high school counselor wants everybody to wear pink Friday, April 25, in order to show support for LGBT students and others who get bullied and harassed, as well as to recognize this year's Day of Silence.

The 12th annual Day of Silence, when students nationwide take a vow not to speak in an effort to bring attention to anti-gay violence and bullying, this year is dedicated to Lawrence King, a 15-year-old Oxnard junior high student who identified as gay and was shot to death in February, allegedly by another student, Brandon McInerney. The Day of Silence is a student-led project of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network.

Ian Enriquez, an openly gay counselor who has worked at Lincoln High School since 2002, noted the Day of Silence isn't exactly a visual event, so the idea is to "get the city to jump aboard and participate and let kids know when they walk out in the street, 'there's somebody who's got my back.'"

Enriquez said the pink theme has been done before. In 2007, a student in Canada was reportedly harassed for wearing pink to school and was labeled a homosexual. Two other students heard about the harassment and brought dozens of pink shirts to their school and got classmates to wear them to show support for the student.

Enriquez also reached out to the staffs of Mayor Gavin Newsom, openly gay Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty, openly gay Assemblyman Mark Leno, (D-San Francisco), the LGBT business community, and the news media.

Ammiano indicated he'd be wearing pink Friday in support of the Day of Silence.

"I try to wear pink everyday anyway. Sometimes, you can't see where I'm wearing it," he quipped.

Dufty said he "absolutely will" wear pink Friday. He and Ammiano are on the board of directors of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway, and Transportation District, and he said they'll ask board members, which includes officials from San Francisco and other Northern California communities, to adjourn Friday's meeting in King's memory.

Leno said that he won't be in Sacramento Friday but he'll be wearing pink and encouraging elected officials in San Francisco to do the same.

"I will let them know what we're doing and why we're doing it, in memory of Larry King's murder and to support the effort to bring greater awareness to the plight of queer students on campus,� Leno told the Bay Area Reporter.

Leno, who's in a tough race for the 3rd District state Senate seat against incumbent Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), said he'll also be going to the annual United for Safe Schools Novato awards dinner, and he'll be asking others involved in the event to wear pink, too.

For her part Migden, an out lesbian, said in a statement to the B.A.R., "I'm tickled pink that colors like lavender and pink are so widely used to promote awareness about our movement, and for issues like breast cancer and domestic violence. I will proudly wear my pink on Friday and hope that San Francisco is awash in pink in honor of Lawrence King and the countless other young people who are bullied and threatened in our schools."

Alex Randolph, Newsom's liaison to the LGBT community and District 8, said he'll wear pink Friday and is encouraging others at City Hall to join him. He said Newsom supports the idea behind Enriquez's efforts, but he isn't sure if the mayor will be wearing pink.

Enriquez said he also wanted to draw more attention to the Day of Silence, which he said has been "declining in steam" at Lincoln the last two years.

So far, the reception to his plan has been good. Just a couple days after he posted the event on the social networking site Facebook, 300 people had indicated interest in taking part. In a flier he posted in the Castro District, he referred to the event as a "pink tsunami."

Of course, anti-gay groups are once again targeting the Day of Silence. A news release issued Tuesday by Concerned Women for America said that on Friday, "the pro-homosexual indoctrination of children in our public schools comes to a boil." CWA said that at schools participating in Day of Silence activities, CWA will urge parents to keep their kids home in a "Day of Silence Walkout" protest.

Enriquez said LGBT students at Lincoln don't face anything "terribly hostile" at school, but students do make comments like "that's so gay." He said students often come out only partially – they may just be out to a specific group of friends, but not to their parents or anyone else. Straight students often outnumber LGBT kids in the school's gay-straight alliance, which currently has about four members who attend meetings regularly, because LGBT kids don't want their participation to out them.