Independence can mean different things in different places. In Takoma Park’s Independence Day parade, it meant that the city’s veggie-lefty politics could take a grilling: Along with the Scout troops and dog trainers marched the Sherman Avenue Precision Grill Team, supporting the rights of meat lovers. Rolling wheeled grills down the street, followed by a truck carting a six-grill stainless-steel pit, the team carried its message. “If God didn’t want us to eat animals,” one sign read, “Why did He make them out of meat?” Grill Teamer Ross Wells insisted that the group wasn’t giving vegetarians the finger, nor was it a sign of right-wing insurgency. “I don’t think anybody on [our] street is conservative,” Ross says. “There was one banner that we marched with—’Liberals United for Sustainable T-Bones.’” —Jason Cherkis