Westboro Baptist Loon Seeks Seat on Kansas Education Board
Westboro Attendee Seeks Seat on Kansas Education Board
A Westboro Baptist anti-science creationist is running for the state Education Board.
Jack Wu isn’t shy about his beliefs.
Topeka is evil. Harry Potter promotes witchcraft. Christmas trees are pagan idols. Cancer is a judgment from God. And the teaching of evolution should be rooted out of Kansas schools because it’s a satanic lie.
He also believes that America’s public schools are cultivating a culture of “liars, thieves, murderers and perverts.”
Outside the mainstream? It doesn’t matter to Wu, running for a seat on the Kansas Board of Education.
A northern California transplant, Wu is seeking to defeat first-term Democrat Carolyn Campbell of Topeka in an admittedly uphill battle for the 4th District seat on the state school board. Uphill because he only received $5 in contributions through July, the most recent reporting period.
But Campbell is taking her Republican opponent seriously.
“I want to make sure the folks that don’t know Carolyn Campbell and her record will try to get to know me and understand who my opponent is and what he stands for,” Campbell said.
The 4th District covers six northeast Kansas counties and takes in parts of Topeka and Lawrence. Campbell’s district became a little more Republican this year when she picked up parts of Jefferson and Pottawatomie counties when election boundaries were redrawn to adjust for the census.
Teachers union officials also worry that voters who cast ballots along straight-party lines might be unaware of Wu’s background.
Wu’s campaign, small as it is, comes at a time when the state school board is expected to consider new science standards, raising the prospect of revisiting the evolution debate that consumed the board in 1999 and again in 2005 — an issue about which Wu has strong views.