Capitol Hill LGBTQ+ organization pushes back against upcoming religious rally

Members of Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community are urging Mayor Bruce Harrell to cancel the permit for an upcoming religious rally at Gas Works Park.

“The very fact that our mayor is allowing this, it’s essentially sanctioning hate speech,” Capitol Hill Pride Director Charlette LeFevre said at City Hall on Wednesday.

Saturday’s “Revive in 25” event is part of the nationwide "Let Us Worship" tour led by Sean Feucht, a Christian nationalist and musician.

Feucht has called the Black Lives Matter movement a “fraud," and said the LGBTQ+ community is a “a cult bent on perverting and destroying the innocence of every child they can.”

The rally was originally slated to be held in Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park, in the heart of the city’s queer community.

Seattle Parks and Recreation approved the permit for “Revive in 25” after Harrell and Seattle City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth worked with event organizers to find a different location for the rally.

Even with the move out of Cal Anderson, LeFevre says the event poses a safety risk to the community, and believes it poses an inherent violation of Washington state’s incitement and malicious harassment laws.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s Gas Works Park, Capitol Hill, or anywhere in the City of Seattle,” LeFevre said. “They shouldn’t be doing this.”

In an emailed statement to KUOW, a spokesperson for Harrell’s office said the U.S. Constitution requires the city to allow the expression of free speech “regardless of the content of the speech.”

“Under the First Amendment, the City cannot decline a permit based on the anticipated message of the event or views of the organizers,” the spokesperson wrote.

Prior to Wednesday’s press conference, LeFevre and Philip Lipson, another director of Capitol Hill Pride, approached Mayor Harrell outside of Seattle City Hall.

“I’m asking you to review this and consider as soon as possible pulling and canceling the permit,” LeFevre said.

Harrell nodded.

Afterward, speaking to reporters inside city hall, LeFevre said Harrell listened to her concerns about the event — but his office has not answered any of the group’s emails or phone calls.

Correction, 8/27/25 at 4:27 p.m.: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Denny Blaine Park as the original site of the upcoming “Revive in 25” rally. This story has been corrected to reflect that Cal Anderson Park was the original site.