To the editor:

Controversy regarding Kansas University associate professor Paul Mirecki, his intelligent design class and his e-mail comments must not interfere with achieving an urgent goal: changing the composition of the Kansas Board of Education membership.

Kansans who support this goal should take note of our governor’s leadership. She recognizes that the problem is political, and that solving it requires hard work to educate people about what is at stake and to ensure high voter turnout. Part of this effort involves something even more challenging: reaching out to flexible or undecided voters who do not share the zealotry of people on the extremes.

The future of children and young people in Kansas is at the heart of the current conflict. Redefining science and including intelligent design in the public education curriculum will endanger that future and do harm to our state.

Fire and brimstone politics is not the answer, nor is an approach based on antagonizing those who support intelligent design, or who are inclined to support it.

There are many reasons why Kathleen Sebelius has been successful in an otherwise red state; Kansans who seek a positive way out of this difficult time will listen and look to her as a role model.

Ray Pence,

Lawrence