Sewers, Curfews and a Ban on Gay Bias; New York Times, 1/28/13

Dan Barry, New York Times; Sewers, Curfews and a Ban on Gay Bias: "Admit it: The Commission’s anti-discrimination vote seems at odds with knee-jerk assumptions about a map dot in the Appalachian coal fields, tucked between Sassafras and Happy. For one thing, Vicco embraces its raucous country-boy reputation — home to countless brawls and a dozen or so unsolved murders, people here say. For another, it is in Perry County, where four of every five voters rejected President Obama in the November election. But the Vicco Commission’s 3-to-1 vote this month not only anticipated a central theme in the president’s second inaugural speech (“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law ...”), it also presented a legislative model to the nation’s partisan-paralyzed Capitol, 460 miles away. You discuss, you find consensus, you vote, and you move on, explained the mayor, Johnny Cummings. “You have to get along.”"