Arthur? Is That You, Arthur? Oh, Arthur, What Strange Company You Are Keeping

And now you are marching in the Labor Day Parade with the manchild who wants to be our next state senator, the one who has never voted labor's way on a labor issue.

Those riders who have been around long enough to remember "The Normal Heart" will remember the manchild's mother, former state representative Jean Dixon, who was against the play it turns out, (to coin a phrase) because she saw how her oldest son struggled with his own homosexuality.

Back in 1992, Robert Edwards, now the voice of MoDOT, was a reporter for the Springfield News Leader and he wrote in the SN-L, Sunday edition, March 8, 1992:

Although she didn't say so at the time, Jean Dixon says now her vehement opposition to "The Normal Heart" was motivated in large part because she saw how her older son struggled with his own homosexuality.

Her son, Bob Dixon, says he lived as a homosexual for about five years until a religious experience caused him to change in late October, 1988. He told his parents shortly after Jean Dixon, a Republican, was elected to the Missouri House in November 1988.

Bob Dixon, 22, now planning to marry a Springfield woman, talked publicly about his former life as a homosexual in a Springfield City Council Meeting in May 1991 when he spoke on a bias-crimes ordinance.

Jean Dixon says her son's guilt almost caused him to commit suicide. Her son says one night in early October 1988 he considered crashing his car off a road.

She says she fought "The Normal Heart," a play about AIDS and homosexuality produced at Southwest Missouri State University in 1989, because she saw it as affirming the homosexual way of life, which she says is harmful to those who live it.

"I wasn't just some hard-nosed so-called Christian out here ranting and raving," says the former lawmaker who was outspoken about her strong Christian beliefes during her two years in office. "It had been a heartache I had to deal with, and it was a tough one."

Asked is she would oppose the play again, she says, "You bet. I believe it was the right thing to do."

An unlimited bus pass to those riders who are able to identify the object in the photo above and relate how it relates to this post.