At the doctor’s office the other day filling out a questionnaire, I hesitated when asked anent religious preference if I were an atheist.

    I put a couple of question marks after the word, and was thinking how to elaborate, when Mary scratched out “atheist” and put in “agnostic.”

    Now, today, I find in looking at Newsday that I have some company: “For the first time in its history the United States does not have a Protestant majority. . . . About 20 percent of Americans say they have no religious affiliation.”

    Further, “one-third of adults under age 30 have no religious affiliation, compared to 9 percent of people 65 and older.” I suppose that’s because we hear footsteps.

    But to be godless, as it were, is not to say one can’t marvel at the creation, or to say that one can’t be eternally caught up in the wonder of it, or to say, further, that the unaffiliated are somehow unmoored and therefore cannot live ethical lives.

    (Lately, I have found myself unmoored, at sea, but that is because I finally consigned an antique word processor to the trash heap. It’s just me and my laptop now, and I feel so alone in the universe.)

    Back to religion, while the value to society of the high communal purpose that churches provide their communicants is obvious, it is no less obvious that historically religious beliefs have worked, and are working, much mischief and are causing much pain.

    I know too that religion can be consolatory, but that’s not to say we cannot live well and bravely unconsoled. In fact, as Gore Vidal once said, simply knowing that this is it ought to spur us on all the more to make the best of things.

   Aside from the Hamptons International Film Festival, which drew crowds to East Hampton Village last weekend, the South Fork has had plenty of other events in the last few weeks — and their popularity is raising questions about official oversight, or really the lack thereof.

    The Montauk Chamber of Commerce also held its fall festival last weekend, and in previous weeks we saw the Hamptons Marathon, a couple of triathlons in Montauk, and Sag Harbor’s HarborFest and outdoor music concerts. Each contributed to a busy-seeming beginning of the season, good for shopkeepers and hotels and inns, but perhaps less so for those inconvenienced by runners and bikers clogging otherwise quiet roads.

    In particular, a marathon and half marathon on Sept. 29, a Saturday, irked some Springs residents. Runners, too, were flabbergasted at having to get around cars and trucks, which were forced to slow to a crawl by the masses of people. Curse words were exchanged in one incident we heard about. The marathon, which collected at least $300,000 in registration fees this year, gives a portion of its yearly profit to charity, notably Project MOST, an after-school program for Springs and East Hampton grade-school students. Surprising perhaps to those who were inconvenienced by the race, the East Hampton Town Board waived all the usual fees it could otherwise have assessed the marathon organizers — including $20,000 in police overtime.

     In Montauk, questions came up at the most recent citizens advisory committee about whether the town was being compensated adequately by the organizers of triathlons, who charge as much as $98 per competitor; 526 were listed as finishing on Sept. 30. Police overtime and other fees associated with this race, however, did not appear to have been waived.

    A suggestion made over a year ago that the Town of East Hampton should do more to scrutinize races and other crowd-inducing events before handing out permits has been ignored. It may be time to reassess the minimal supervision and to consider the views of affected residents before next year’s approvals are granted and more expenses left for taxpayers to cover.

   Like long-suffering residents of many parts of the South Fork, people who live in a section of East Hampton centered on Miller Lanes East and West have experienced mounting frustration with drivers using the streets in their neighborhood to skirt traffic. In this case, cars and trucks wend their way through the narrow lanes as an alternative to the North Main and Cedar Street intersection. Residents have turned to the East Hampton Town Board for a solution, citing safety concerns.

    The town board is considering a ban on large trucks there in an attempt to eliminate “through” traffic. While a limit on the largest vehicles might be defensible, given the annoyances the neighborhood has been forced to endure, blocking free and unfettered public use of these roads would not be, and it could set off an unwelcome domino effect as those in other neighborhoods seek to control who can and cannot pass. Moreover, the residents’ description of narrow roads with poor sightlines, which put bicyclists and pedestrians at risk, are far from unique. It could fairly describe a substantial number, if not a majority, of the roads under the town’s purview.

    Former East Hampton Town Highway Superintendent Chris Russo hit the problem of precedent head-on when he spoke in opposition to the plan at a Sept. 21 town board hearing. He said, convincingly, that the ban on through traffic would be “de facto” privatization of taxpayer-funded roads. One wonders where the effort to ban through traffic would pop up next: Bluff Road, Amagansett? Old Montauk Highway in Montauk? Further Lane? How would such a fuzzy concept be defined? And how would enforcing the prohibition work anyway? Town police have more than enough to keep them busy in the summer season; would this mean that vigilante property owners could take it upon themselves to determine who belongs on “their” streets? It is an impractical proposition at best.

    Tackling growth townwide appears to be the only fair way of trying to keep our roadways from becoming yet worse. Each new commercial development adds to traffic, as do unchecked multiple residences and summer share houses. The residents of the Miller Lanes area are experiencing an acute case of an illness shared by many here — one most public officials have ignored.

    Many of us experience traffic frustrations equal to, or even greater than, those who live in the Miller Lane neighborhood, but public roads must remain public.

   East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson released his 2013 budget last week, which contains a pay raise for elected and appointed officials, including himself, and more money for water safety. Also going up is money for ordinance enforcement, but only somewhat: The $338,000 budgeted is still below what was spent in 2010. This is too little for a chronically short-staffed department, one that is critically important for assuring that town rules are followed.

    The Ordinance Enforcement Department has a difficult job to do and a tangled history. It is responsible for seeking out and dealing with health, safety, housing, zoning, environmental, noise, lighting, and permit violations. The department’s qualifications and training are the subject of litigation, which has resulted in a spate of town code amendments. Its effectiveness and reputation have been damaged in recent years by political interference and the fact that its director moonlights as the town’s top animal control officer.

    Topping the department’s list of priorities should be efforts to help the town gain the upper hand on overcrowded and unsafe illegal rentals, whose residents put pressure on infrastructure and local schools without concomitant property tax increases for landlords. A considerably more effective enforcement team is needed to tackle this and other tough problems.

    More money in and of itself will not improve this chronically over-stressed department, but the 2013 budget discussions now under way are an opportunity for officials and interested taxpayers to debate its direction.

   We were puzzled last week at the news that the Town of East Hampton was putting off even temporary or conditional approval of a request from the Viking Fleet to berth a seasonal party-fishing vessel at the Commercial Dock on Three Mile Harbor.

    Viking, which runs a large recreational fishing operation out of Montauk, had asked the town board for permission to dock a 65-foot-long day boat there for access to Gardiner’s and Peconic Bays in the spring. No more than 20 paying customers would be aboard at one time, and the trips would be prepaid and by reservation, obviating the need for a ticket booth at the East Hampton site. Members of the board, while not sharply opposed, declined to move forward with the Viking Fleet’s request, saying they wanted to think about it some more. The decision shouldn’t require too much cogitation.

    Commercial Dock is a bulkhead at the end of Gann Road.  A parking lot there is rarely used in the off-season, although a jumble of boats and fishing gear is piled along its landward margin. Space for one vessel remains, though more could be made available if a relatively useless town-owned barge was moved or sold.

    It seems that the dock could accommodate Viking’s plan with minimal impact on other activities or neighbors. Throw in a little jolt of springtime economic activity in that neck of the woods, and you have a compelling argument for at least a one or two-season trial.

   Sag Harbor Village officials have embarked on a poorly-explained effort to evaluate whether to disband or sharply reduce the village’s police department. Just why they are undertaking this is open to question, as is why they have for the most part chosen to pursue the goal behind closed doors.

    The village board met on Sept. 21 in a seemingly illegal, two-hour executive session, after which they voted to seek an arrangement with the Suffolk Sheriff’s Department for partial patrols. The existing police force would be reduced by encouraging eligible officers to take early retirement. The village had already sought and received proposals from the Southampton and East Hampton Town police, but the sheriff’s office apparently offered the best deal in terms of price.

    The secrecy is unwarranted and would appear to violate the New York State Open Meetings Law, which allows only limited exemptions. Discussions among a majority of board members about the fate of the Sag Harbor Police Department as a whole must take place in full public view — as should have the decision to seek bids from outside agencies. But even if a few of the details involved fell within the carefully delineated exemptions in the law, it is highly unlikely that a two-hour confab was legal in its entirety.

     If there is one matter in which village residents should be involved — perhaps above all others — it is public safety. Though cost-savings would appear to be motivating the board’s consideration of outsourcing some or all village police work, residents must have the opportunity to weigh in as to whether the full cost of their own, hometown department is something they are willing to bear.

   It is a story we dreaded. An East Hampton High School student apparently committed suicide late last week, and some of those who knew him have drawn a direct connection from what is being described as a deliberate, tragic act to his being bullied because he was gay or perceived by others as gay.

    Few details have emerged at this point about the life of David Hernandez Barros, who was 16, but we have been told fellow students at East Hampton High School bullied him. In a powerful letter to the editor of this newspaper this week, a former student at the high school said that he himself had considered committing suicide because of the self-hatred engendered by the hateful insults directed at him by his peers. David’s struggle, he wrote, was “similar to the ones many of us face growing up in this community.” If this is the status quo, it is unacceptable.

    Learning of David’s death on Saturday, Richard Burns, the superintendent of the East Hampton School District, issued a  statement calling the death tragic and saying he was truly saddened. His office and Adam Fine, the high school principal, offered counseling for students and faculty. Representatives of the Family Service League’s Joe’s Project, a suicide-prevention initiative, have been invited to speak with students. Meetings were said to be ongoing about how to respond further.

    Nationally, bullying of gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender students is considered epidemic. Shocking statistics were cited in the media following the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman, who leaped into the Hudson River last year after a video was posted online showing him kissing another young man. Other recent deaths in similar circumstances have been of a 13-year-old boy in Texas, another in Minnesota, and a 15-year-old in Indiana. A majority (and far more in some surveys) of G.L.B.T. youth are said to have been the targets of bullying for who they are.

     Whether or not a detailed explanation of David’s apparent decision to end his life emerges, a shared sense is that anti-gay harassment right here in East Hampton was a cause, if not the cause. School and community leaders must address this perception — focusing on the alleged attackers, not just their victims.

    Our deepest sympathy goes to David’s family and his friends. May the community rally in their support.

   An article in The Wall Street Journal last week pointed out parallels between the race for the presidency and that for New York’s First Congressional District. The core of its observation was that in both contests centrist incumbents are pitted against wildly wealthy challengers.

    In the First District race as in the contest for the presidency, the candidates are intelligent men with differing views on the role of government and the direction of the country. This should make for substantive exchanges. Instead, Mitt Romney’s campaign charges that President Obama has not done enough to help the economy, while the Democratic refrain is that Republican policies would destroy Medicare and the middle class. In the First Congressional District, mailboxes, radio stations, and television channels are spilling over with such assaults as Mr. Bishop’s claim that Mr. Altschuler would outsource the American work force and Mr. Altschuler’s denigrating Mr. Bishop as merely a “career politician.”

    And the campaign is getting worse in a hurry, particularly in an effort on behalf of Mr. Altschuler by an anonymously funded political action committee founded by George W. Bush and Karl Rove. According to a Politico report from last week, Crossroads GPS, a conservative political action committee that is not required to disclose its donors, is making the Bishop-Altschuler race the first of its 2012 Congressional targets. The PAC’s first salvo is a television ad repeating allegations that Mr. Bishop acted improperly in seeking fireworks permits for a constituent who was later solicited by his daughter for a campaign donation. The ad also repeatedly uses a circular graphic that appears to be the crosshairs of a rifle scope.

    The use of gun-sight imagery is worse than unfortunate, and has no place in reasonable political campaigns. While Mr. Altschuler may not have personally signed off on the ad — given the supposed firewall between Super PACs and the candidates they support — he should disavow it and demand its retraction. It seems unlikely that Crossroads GPS might have forgotten that less than two years ago Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot by a mentally disturbed man outside an Arizona supermarket and that, in the aftermath of the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee was decried for its use of gun-sight imagery in “targeting” 20 House Democrats in the previous November’s election, including Ms. Giffords.

    For a country as saturated with guns and gun violence, and whose commitment to the treatment of the mentally ill is demonstrably inadequate, the use of such images in political campaigns is wholly irresponsible. If Mr. Altschuler fails to demand that the Crossroads GPS ads putting his opponent in the line of fire be removed from circulation, one can only conclude that he is a candidate willing to say or do whatever it takes to win.

   As Russell Drumm reported this week in the fishing news, the fall striped bass run has begun and fanatics from near and far are heading to Montauk Point to get in on the action. At the same time, late summer and fall can produce the best waves of the year, drawing surfers and sightseers as well to the Point, where the town is responsible for a small parking lot reached by a bumpy gravel road, from which one can quickly step onto the beach at Turtle Cove.

    By an arrangement worked out some years back, the parking lot is closed during the summer and open when the fishing and waves are good. But like any number of other public beach accesses the Town of East Hampton manages, this one is a bit of a mess — both visually and functionally — and unnecessarily so, although the fix would be simple.

    We happened to be there just this past Sunday and watched as a  town marine patrol officer reluctantly wrote ticket after ticket for vehicles that, to our eye, were not parked illegally. It turned out that, though the area in terms of space can hold perhaps a dozen vehicles, there were only legal spaces for six; three handicapped spots were clearly marked, but signs denoting the other three were unclear, if they were visible at all. No visitor — or town official for that matter — could fairly have a clue as to what was a legal spot and what was not without a map.

    So we asked the officer whose responsibility was it to clarify the confusion to put up more signs and spare well-intentioned people an expensive parking summons. The answer? The East Hampton Town Board, some of the same folks, we thought, who wanted to open up a new ocean bathing beach on Napeague. Oh, yeah. Right. Great idea. And we went about our business.

   About a month ago, East Hampton Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. issued a reminder to groups of bicyclists who might take to his village’s roads. Objecting to thick knots of organized recreational pedalists who fail to yield to motorists or force pedestrians to jump aside, Mr. Rickenbach reminded them that they, too, are obliged to follow traffic laws, just like the drivers of cars and trucks, “in such a manner as to prevent undue interference with the flow of traffic.”

    In a similar scenario, we wonder if the village mayor and/or officials in other jurisdictions might let our landscaping companies know that the increasing habit of blocking entire paths of travel with vehicles and trailers too large to fit into the driveways of the properties they serve will no longer be tolerated.

    How often have motorists come around a blind curve hereabouts to encounter personnel of a lawn care firm unloading mowers from a big rig stopped right in the center of the roadway without someone posted to direct traffic? The risk is real. Some years ago, a worker lost his legs in an accident just outside East Hampton Village when he was crushed by a passing vehicle against the side of a trailer parked in the road. Although under some circumstances it might be possible for drivers to wait for the road to be cleared, many times they are forced unwittingly into oncoming traffic.

    One can understand why the landscapers do it. They may be loathe to park their giant work vehicles on the very grass clients pay them handsomely to maintain. And, since the Hamptons are a bit like company towns when it comes to the wishes of seasonal residents, officials might be inclined to look the other way. Regardless of the excuses, our roads — and the police who keep them safe — are paid for by taxpayers, who have every right to use them without undue risk of collision.