Free Republic

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. (AP) -- Among the items on the City Council's agenda seems a simple matter: Whether to give rowers a permit to have a boat race this summer on a small man-made lake. But because the rowers are gay - participating in something called the Gay Games - what would normally be a mundane debate about parking and street closures is instead a heated battle between those who see the event as a threat to their small-town way of life and those who see such views as simply small-minded. On Tuesday, the City Council was scheduled to discuss...