The claim by Marc D. Stern (“Will gay rights trample religious freedom?” June 19) that expanding gay rights will curtail religious freedom is a classic case of crying wolf. Not one of the examples he cites involves religious practice or worship. Instead, they are instances where church organizations or religious believers have withheld public services, some licensed by the state and all offered at a price.

I might heed Stern’s cry if the California Supreme Court decision authorizing gay marriage had ordered priests and preachers to assume a religious posture favorable to gay rights. But, of course, that didn’t happen. The pulpit remains safe from state interference and religious preachers of various stripes remain free to spout their hate-filled anti-gay rhetoric.

Phil Kipper

San Francisco

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Bike law debate rolls on

On behalf of the 9,000-member San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, I would like to add to your analysis of Idaho-style laws for bicyclists at stop signs and stoplights.

The SFBC supports the discussion led by the MTC of whether these traffic laws could benefit San Francisco. These changes, coupled with motorist, pedestrian and bicyclist education, could smooth traffic flow for all road users.

A thorough analysis on the feasibility and impact of these laws is needed, not anecdotal information about the behaviors of a minority of cyclists, as provided in your article (“‘Stop’ may not apply to spokes soon,” June 18).

As gas prices rise and more people switch to sustainable modes of transportation, forward-

thinking cities need to reconsider how streets can best benefit the majority of users — pedestrians, bicyclists and people on public transportation. We applaud the MTC for its leadership in these efforts.

Neal Patel

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

San Francisco

Is there anyone over at the MTC with their lights on? I’m hoping it was a joke, this latest inane proposal to adopt, from of all places, the Boise ordinance that allows overgrown adolescents on bicycles to blithely ignore red lights.

First of all, we pedestrians agree with the cops — four out of five bicyclists flout traffic safety. Secondly, this sense of entitlement that cocoons the bicyclist mind from reality needs to be destroyed and those fools brought back to earth. Thirdly, MTC, will you please fire those idiots who call themselves an “advisory committee”?

Come on, who in their right mind would advise playing Russian roulette with a ton of steel? Does anyone even think that the SFPD would ever agree to this monumentally stupid idea? Say it ain’t so, please?

Gordon D. Robertson

San Francisco

I’m disappointed that one S.F. police captain’s personal prejudices were allowed to masquerade as facts in your article on the MTC proposal to allow bicyclists to treat red lights/stop signs as stop/yield signs. In fact, recent MTA data showed that the number of bicycle fatalities in San Francisco has stayed steady at one or two since 2002, and underscored that there has been a “significant decline in bicycle-related injury collisions over the past decade.”

Moreover, Capt. Corrales’ assertion that “bicyclists have a sense of entitlement and have long ignored existing traffic laws,” is a gross generalization; most of the cyclists I know are law-abiding and well understand the cold reality that it is hardly in a bicyclist’s interests to ignore traffic signals and signs. The minority that choose to, do so at their peril.

The MTC’s proposal is a serious, reasonable attempt to prioritize bicycling that deserved more fair treatment than The Examiner gave it.

Ben Caldwell

Bike Program Coordinator, Presidio Community YMCA and MTA Bicycle Safety Education Project

San Francisco

Notice that the media reports follow the biased line put out by MTC’s self-appointed Regional Bicycle Working Group — that the transportation world only needs to think of safety and mobility for bicyclists and car drivers.

Nowhere in the MTC staff memo or in the comment from bicyclists is there a consideration of a mode of transportation everyone uses — walking!

Yet pedestrians are vulnerable to hazards from bicyclists as well as from drivers.

Various categories of pedestrians, whether adults with a baby in a stroller or someone using a walker or a group of preschool kids on an outing, all have a heightened need for monitoring their safety. Yet too many of the bicycle advocates who have so far expressed opinions on this suggestion don’t relate to or regularly communicate with agencies working with vulnerable pedestrians.

Does this seem prudent? Unbiased? Fair? How will this play in Sacramento?

Especially when people with disabilities weigh in about the additional hazards vulnerable pedestrians will have to endure?

Bob Planthold

San Francisco

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