{"id":244,"date":"2010-10-02T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-02T15:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/02\/writing-my-legislators\/"},"modified":"2015-06-19T00:23:30","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T23:23:30","slug":"writing-my-legislators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/02\/writing-my-legislators\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing my Legislators"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\nDear Honourable Hancock and Skinner,<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m writing about anti-LGBT bullying in California schools.  It was with great distress that I read about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bakersfield.com\/news\/local\/x1924582638\/Hundreds-mourn-bullied-Tehachapi-teen-who-took-his-own-life\">the suicide of Seth Walsh in Tehachapi<\/a>.  As you probably know, he was a victim of daily bullying at school by homophobic classmates.<\/p>\n<p>Suicides rates of LGBT youth in California are unacceptably high and bullying is often a factor in these deaths.  I hope that the State of California will take action to ensure that schools take bullying seriously and take steps to stop it.  I hope also that schools will give the message to LGBT students and their peers that LGBT people are valuable members of society.<\/p>\n<p>LGBT kids need to be safe in small towns as much as they are in big cities. It is not good enough to have a few safe areas, like the Bay Area. Kids in small towns are more isolated and need as much or more protection from harassment and bullying.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your time.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<br \/>\nCharles Hutchins\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think national action should be taken on this, but also local and state.  You can find out who your CA state legislators are at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leginfo.ca.gov\/yourleg.html\">http:\/\/www.leginfo.ca.gov\/yourleg.html<\/a>. When you write, include your home address, so they know you live in their district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Honourable Hancock and Skinner, I&#8217;m writing about anti-LGBT bullying in California schools. It was with great distress that I read about the suicide of Seth Walsh in Tehachapi. As you probably know, he was a victim of daily bullying at school by homophobic classmates. Suicides rates of LGBT youth in California are unacceptably high &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/02\/writing-my-legislators\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Writing my Legislators<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,72,14],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-celesteh","tag-letter","tag-lgbt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2444,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/2444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}