Proposed Gay Games Event Divides Ill. Town
By DON BABWIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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 whether to allow the Olympics-style Gay Games to hold its rowing event in this bedroom community of 40,000 about 50 miles northwest of Chicago. the rest