Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Educators and political leaders in Kansas worry that a candidate with ties to an anti-gay Topeka church notorious for picketing military funerals could capture a State Board of Education seat.

Republican Jack Wu is a Topeka computer programmer who made opposition to teaching evolution the cornerstone of his campaign ahead of Tuesday's election. He's running in the 4th District in northeast Kansas against Democratic incumbent Carolyn Campbell of Topeka.

Wu says he was lured to Kansas from California in 2008 by Westboro Baptist Church. Wu is not formally a member, but he's attended services regularly.

But even a Wu victory wouldn't alter the 10-member board's balance of power or revive chances that Kansas might adopt science standards for its public schools skeptical of evolution, as it has in the past.