By Jordana Hart, Globe Staff, 05/17/98

The 140 publicly funded Gay/Straight Alliances in Massachusetts high schools have given new life to gay students who are lonely, terrified of being found out, and even suicidal, advocates said.

Yesterday, a handful of student leaders, some of them victims of gay-bashing who had considered suicide, pumped the already soaring spirits of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual students, parents, and teachers at the fourth annual Gay & Straight Youth Pride Day in Boston. Organizers had expected about 2,000 to turn out, but Boston Police estimated the crowd at 7,500.

''I'd sit at a lunch table and the girls would talk about boys, but I couldn't talk about girls,'' said Emily Delisle, 16, a sophomore at Bromfield High School in Harvard. Recalling that she wrote in her diary about committing suicide, Delisle came out to her parents three years ago and to her friends last June. ''I felt isolated. I was so afraid to come out. What if my friends didn't like me? What if they didn't talk to me anymore?''

Yesterday's celebration was tinged with tension as the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, which sponsored yesterday's Youth Pride march from the State House to the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, announced efforts to have the Senate restore funding recently cut by House lawmakers.

In February, Acting Governor Paul Cellucci called for $1.25 million in state ''Safe Schools'' money for the alliances, parent education, and other programs organized by the commission. It was a 25-percent increase over last year.

But last month, the House slashed the funding to $750,000, which commission chairman David LaFontaine said would not allow the state to give $2,000 grants to high schools seeking to start alliances and parent education groups. With proper funding, he said, up to 100 more gay/straight groups could start up next year.

''We are not forcing anyone to come out of the closet,'' said LaFontaine in an interview yesterday. ''Our focus is to make entire schools safe for gay and lesbian students.''

On Tuesday, LaFontaine said, he will present Senate Ways and Means chairman Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst) with an appeal to restore the funds, signed by Senators Lois Pines (D-Newton), Dianne Wilkerson (D- Roxbury), Brian Lees (R-East Longmeadow), and Frederick Berry (D-Peabody), among others.

Rosenberg could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Meanwhile, the ebullient crowd gathered at the steps of the State House forced police to quickly close off the section of Beacon Street near Park Street as the youngsters, giddy at being together, spilled onto the street.

''This shows me we are not alone,'' said Daniel Penland, a 14-year-old freshman at Bedford High School, attending his first Youth Pride Day. ''We can reach out and connect here. It is a neat feeling.''

Massachusetts is the only state with a commission for gay youth and a Gay and Lesbian Student Rights law, signed by Governor William F. Weld in 1993. There were just two gay/straight alliances in 1992, LaFontaine said.

LaFontaine said the commission's work is much needed, given that the 1995 state Youth Risk Behavior survey underscored what advocates nationwide already know: Gay teenagers are more likely than straight teenagers to abuse drugs and alcohol, face threats, skip school because they feel unsafe, or try suicide.

This story ran on page B03 of the Boston Globe on 05/17/98. Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.