I am writing to state my unequivocal  opposition to our Governor's Don't Say Gay Decree. It is broadly worded and will have severe negative effects against the LGBT community.

This will lead to increased suicide attempt by LGBT students, higher rate of child abuse, increased teacher turnover, and further longterm damage/trust issues with our education system.

The damage will go far beyond LGBT students/teachers. Our country is facing a teacher shortage of epic proportions and this will only make it much worse. People move from all over the world to Virginia because of our world class school system. If we lose that competitive advantage, The Commonwealth will suffer significantly.

Public leaders have an obligation to provide truthful information to their voters. Nobody is providing students with sexual information. This law/edict is just a guise to censor and harass the LGBT community. It confuses a lot of good people, and pushes the Overton window on homophobia. The downsides to this policy are many. Increased student suicide, unsafe learning environment, worsening our teacher crisis, and the list goes on. Judging from the public comments, the vast majority of Virginian's agree with me. The few who supported the proposal seemed to believe there was sexual material/porn being shown in schools. 

When you take all this into consideration, the Governor should reject the Don't Say Gay Edict.