10.24.2004
Gary Younge visits Springfield, Missouri (Guardian.co.uk)
In the run-up to polling day, Gary Younge is driving the 2,147 miles from John Kerry's base in Boston, Massachusetts to George Bush's home town of Midland, Texas. Today he tests the mood in Springfield, Missouri
Saturday October 23, 2004
The Guardian
Cleo Toris leads me on stage to the tune of 'I am a woman' and clasps my hand to her fake breast. 'They tell me you're married,' she says. 'But are you curious?'
'Curious about what?' I ask. 'I'll talk to you later,' said Cleo Toris (run the two names together quickly) to the laughter of the mainly gay and lesbian crowd at the Black Tie Affair in Springfield, Missouri.
With a proud crop of manly chest hair poking out of her pink harem outfit, Cleo Toris is no regular drag queen.
But then this is just the biannual turn of raucous stand-up she does for charity.
The rest of the year she is Mark Gideon, a 47-year-old education administrator.
Mr Gideon is the only graduate of the Evangel University, a devout Christian college situated in Springfield (population 151,580), to be crowned Ms Missouri by the International Gay Rodeo Association. 'I got wonderful training at Evangel,' he says. 'But I was shocked the first time I went into a gay bar and found half my Bible class was in there.'
There are around 71 Springfields (not including the one the Simpsons live in) dotted around 36 states and territories of America, from the Virgin Islands of the Caribbean to Vermont in New England. Georgia alone has nine; Virginia has eight.
But the Springfield in Missouri is special. It is the home town of fundamentalist attorney general John Ashcroft, a man so religious he holds daily Bible study classes in his office.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Gary Younge visits Springfield, Missouri) ¶ 20:29
Saturday October 23, 2004
The Guardian
Cleo Toris leads me on stage to the tune of 'I am a woman' and clasps my hand to her fake breast. 'They tell me you're married,' she says. 'But are you curious?'
'Curious about what?' I ask. 'I'll talk to you later,' said Cleo Toris (run the two names together quickly) to the laughter of the mainly gay and lesbian crowd at the Black Tie Affair in Springfield, Missouri.
With a proud crop of manly chest hair poking out of her pink harem outfit, Cleo Toris is no regular drag queen.
But then this is just the biannual turn of raucous stand-up she does for charity.
The rest of the year she is Mark Gideon, a 47-year-old education administrator.
Mr Gideon is the only graduate of the Evangel University, a devout Christian college situated in Springfield (population 151,580), to be crowned Ms Missouri by the International Gay Rodeo Association. 'I got wonderful training at Evangel,' he says. 'But I was shocked the first time I went into a gay bar and found half my Bible class was in there.'
There are around 71 Springfields (not including the one the Simpsons live in) dotted around 36 states and territories of America, from the Virgin Islands of the Caribbean to Vermont in New England. Georgia alone has nine; Virginia has eight.
But the Springfield in Missouri is special. It is the home town of fundamentalist attorney general John Ashcroft, a man so religious he holds daily Bible study classes in his office.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Gary Younge visits Springfield, Missouri) ¶ 20:29
