This was written by the POLITICAL EDITOR of the Des Moines Register. The email and snail addresses for the Register appear at the top of the item.

-- DES MOINES REGISTER
Box 957,Des Moines,Ia.,50304
-(Fax 515-286-2511, print run 212,700)
(E-MAIL: dsmreg@delphi.com)

Monday, May 29, 1995

ESSAY/COMMENT, page 7A

by David Yepsen, Register political editor

All of you living outside Des Moines will have to pardon us here in the capital city. We're about to have a school board race with a homosexual incumbent running against some religious conservatives. Since Des Moines is a media center, readers and viewers outside will be forced to suffer through it all.

But you are lucky. You won't have to live with the results. No matter what the outcome, it's hard to see how anyone will be a real winner in this political fight. Our kids could be the big losers.

School board member Jonathan Wilson has said he's likely to run for re-election. He's also said he's gay. He said that against the backdrop of how to teach about homosexuality and whether to teach tolerance of it.

This is the sort of story that media people can't resist. Any story involving sex and a politician is page-one, top-of-the-newscast stuff. It sells.

We're going to be talking about gay rights and religious conservatives and what the Bible says or doesn't say about homosexuality. There will be radio talk shows whipping up public sentiment. And there will be the outsiders.

Already one presidential candidate - Pat Buchanan - has weighed in with his objections to the school board. Religious conservatives will use the school board race as a dry run for their effort in the precinct caucuses.

And the gay and lesbian community is promising to raise $50,000 - much of it from outsiders - to help Wilson. Some of these outsiders - on both sides - couldn't even find Des Moines on a map but they'll be in here mucking up our politics with scorched-Earth campaigns and dividing our community trying to pursue other agendas.

There will be rallies in support of gays and lesbians. There will be churches packed to the rafters with opponents. We'll have national media types looking down their noses at how Heartland Hicks are handling all this.

People in the gay and lesbian community have said this campaign will be a "jihad." A leading evangelical pastor has said that the community is "raising up two or three" good Christians to run for the school board.

While this makes for interesting stories, it also means we may not have much debate about education. So the campaign raises some important questions:

• First, can we media people take a cold shower, and cover this campaign in a fair, responsible and dispassionate way? Will we favor Wilson because many media people are liberals? Will we favor his opponents because heterosexual men run the news business?

  Will we avoid stereotyping? Most gays and lesbians do not look like drag queens. Most evangelicals are not Bible-wavers.

  It will be a challenge for us to stay focused on what's important. What do you think we'll opt for: The latest gay and lesbian rally for Wilson? Or a piece about where the candidates stand on the infrastructure problems facing the schools?

• Second, is Wilson going to run as a gay candidate or a candidate who happens to be gay? He can't have it both ways, although all politicians try. Give the problems in the schools, he may want to make the race on his sexuality instead of on his record.

  And some of the extremists in the homosexual movement will want him to run as a gay candidate. He can't say it's not an issue because he opted to "come out" at a school board meeting called to discuss how schools will teach about homosexuality. He'll be taking money and support from gay and lesbian groups around the country.

• Third, will Wilson's opponents run as evangelical candidates or as alternatives to an incumbent? They will argue Wilson should be defeated because of his homosexuality. But are we supposed to vote for them just because they are heterosexuals from an evangelical church?

Many voters do care about real issues. There will be a number of people who will vote against Wilson simply because 12 years is long enough for him to be in office. If Wilson loses, it won't necessarily mean voters are anti-gay, perhaps just anti-incumbent.

And there will be plenty of people who will vote against his challengers because they won't offer specific solutions to the problems facing the schools and how those solutions should be financed. These voters are not religious bigots, only discerning voters who are asking candidates for more than God's plan for roof repair.

The race will also feature a good argument over whether sexual orientations and preferences are relevant. Some will say it isn't. Others will say it is. Anyone who has been around politics knows that character and sexual habits of political candidates are of concern to large blocs of voters. Character does matter because it affects decision-making.

The fact is, Wilson can't come out of the closet at a school board meeting and then turn around and say voters shouldn't pay attention to what he has done at those meetings. He has said his sexual orientation has shaped his views of what should be taught in the classroom so that makes sexuality an issue.

It's just not the ONLY issue.

For weeks, Linda Lantor Fandel of our editorial page staff has prowled around the Des Moines schools and meticulously pointed out problem after problem with the system's physical plant. Fixing that has nothing to do with what a candidate does in bed at night or in church on Sunday morning.

You just won't hear much about that in this campaign.

By the time the tabloid media, the homosexual activists and the religious zealots have churned this campaign into a froth, everything else will be lost.

No one will be talking about the crummy facilities these kids are in, the lack of computers or air conditioning, ancient furniture in their schoolrooms, the low pay the good teachers get, the difficulty in firing the bad ones, the need for a longer school day and a longer school year, the power of the teacher's union, the incompetence of district financial administrators or the lack of programs for gifted and talented kids.

We're supposed to run our schools for our children. Not Hollywood homosexuals. Not Pat Robertson. Not the teacher's unions. Not the convenience of the parents. Not the layers of school bureaucrats who never set foot in a classroom. Our kids are pawns in this campaign.

So those of you living outside Des Moines should sit back and enjoy this ugly little show we're about to present you. the only real winners may be the suburban real-estate agents.