I'm trying to help this kid who goes to my school, and he's gay... am I approaching this right?

You're being to foward with this thing, you've jumped right in and scared him off. What you shoulda done was befriend him and slowly become better friends with him, when you get to the point when you are good friends with this boy, introduce him to your best friend, let them become friends and try to maintain and improve both friendships. I hope that helped :)