In response to Richard Pearson's “Closing Palm Canyon Drive” — a bad idea.

Dear Richard,

Please give us your details on how Biker Weekend adversely affects businesses. Bringing tourists to Palm Springs to spend money, occupy hotel rooms, eat at local restaurants and drink at downtown bars and nightclubs can only help a struggling economy and boost tax revenues.

The City Council should not be considered stupid for supporting an annual event that brings together a diverse group of people.

I'm extremely concerned and offended by your generalization that bikers are a “group of inherently homophobic people,” as I am a proud biker and a proud gay man - so I'm not sure how I could be considered in any way “inherently homophobic.”

Your narrow view of this “group” leads me to question your pride in our community — just at a point where the right to marry your same-sex partner is being challenged by other groups that may consider us, as gay men, an unacceptable distraction to their own non-diverse beliefs.

If we demand equality and diversity for ourselves, we must also be willing to embrace it in others. Freedom and pride are not exclusive to any one group.

Michael Collins
Cathedral City