ELLSWORTH – A group of Ellsworth High School students who say a guest speaker advocated against repealing the state’s new gay rights bill during a schoolwide assembly earlier this week have asked for equal time to hear an opposing viewpoint.

Charles Silsby, a junior, said he and some other students were bothered by comments the speaker, James Varner, president of the Bangor chapter of the NAACP, made regarding the Nov. 8 ballot question during the high school’s assembly Tuesday afternoon.

The question asks voters whether they want to reject the new law that extends the state’s anti-discrimination laws to gays and lesbians. A yes vote will repeal the law, while a no vote will keep it on the books.

“He started out with discrimination and said how everyone, under the skin, is the same. Then he started talking about November 8,” Silsby said. “He told us to go and vote no, but then he realized he was only talking to a couple of voters. Then he encouraged us to make our parents feel the same way.”

School officials say the assembly was a 20-minute presentation on the general topics of civil rights, tolerance and diversity, not a political demonstration on the ballot question. The assembly was organized several months ago by the student-led civil rights team as part of a continuing dialogue about respecting people’s differences, Ellsworth schools Superintendent Frank Hackett said Friday.

“Mr. Varner did not talk about the addition of sexual orientation to Maine’s discrimination law nor did he advocate in any kind of a way on a position on Question 1,” Hackett said. “If people walked away from that [assembly] and drew conclusions about his views, then I don’t know what to say about that. If people made the connection and were offended by it, it is unfortunate, but that is not what the presentation was about.”

Silsby, who won’t be of legal voting age for another 10 months, helped circulate a petition for students who felt the presentation was biased, offensive or inappropriate for school. He was unsure Thursday how many students signed it.

“The number that signed the petition isn’t what’s important,” he said. “What’s important is that some of what this guy said at school is completely offensive.”

Leslie Beardsley, an Ellsworth resident who serves as the assistant state director for Concerned Women for America, said she heard about the assembly from Silsby and another student, Mike Boucher, both of whom she knows through the Church of Life and Praise youth group.

Parents, not education systems, should cover such topics with their children, and political discussions should not be held at school, she said.

“I think [discussion of] sexual orientation isn’t something that is appropriate for school,” she said.

In an e-mail to the school department, she offered to arrange a guest speaker with an opposing viewpoint for a subsequent school assembly, but her suggestion was rejected.

Concerned Women for America supports a yes vote on Question 1, Beardsley said.

“We have no reason to have another assembly,” Hackett said in a telephone interview. “Tuesday’s assembly was not about why students should vote no on Question 1, so there’s no reason to have an assembly on why students should vote yes.”

“It is unfortunate that this seems to have turned into a political issue,” he said.

Silsby said Tuesday’s assembly was not the first time he has felt uncomfortable with a guest speaker at his school. He has disagreed with previous presentations regarding topics such as abortion and comments made by representatives from organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

As for this week’s subject, Silsby said students want a balanced presentation of viewpoints.

“It is just a matter of ethics,” he said. “If they can have their speaker come in, then we can have ours.”