We’ve entered the closing days of the legislative session, three months characterized by legislators’ stubborn righteousness and a lesson on the painful pace of an evenly divided legislature. Slowing the pace is Gov. Tom Vilsack’s nomination of minor celebrity Jonathan Wilson to a post on the state school board.

Senate Republicans want nothing of it. Wilson is a more-than-outspoken activist for gay rights and is best known for revealing his homosexuality to a live television audience in 1995, when he was on the Des Moines school board.

Wilson set a few records for spending — and controversy generated — during his re-election bid that fall. He finished fourth in a race for two spots in what current-day legislators are calling a referendum on his suitability for state office.

“The people said no to him [in Des Moines], and we don’t necessarily think it would be wise to put somebody who’s been rejected by a local district on the state board,” state Sen. Nancy Boettger, R-Harlan, said to the Associated Press. She heads the Senate Education Committee.

Nobody is disputing: 1. Wilson lost big-time in his last run for office. 2. It was almost nine years ago — if opinions on Howard Dean can change in a week, they can change on Wilson in nine years. 3. Wilson, a lawyer, has the credentials to serve on the board that approves policies for education from kindergartens to the community college level.

Wilson’s notoriety could easily work against him on the state board — he could be a bigger story than board actions. Republicans are also worried Wilson would be an overwhelming advocate for introducing one-sided material about homosexuality into school curriculums, a charge many Des Moines residents made in 1995 after Wilson’s antithesis, WHO Radio’s Jan Mickelson, linked Wilson to a proposal draft to introduce homosexuality discussions into Des Moines schools.

If Republicans are going to actively block this appointment (and they can easily succeed), they’d be wise to anticipate Senate Democrats blocking any future appointment of, say, a prominent and outspoken Christian educator — of which there are already a few on the Board of Education — to the state level. And if Wilson can really “subvert” a 10-member board to his agenda — well, then we probably all have bigger problems.

This isn’t exactly replacing Sandra Day O’Connor on a split court and rewriting American law. It’s about a reasonable appointment to a state education policy board.

Find something else to shake your finger at. For example, Wilson probably can do little, on or off the board, without an education budget to work with.