A few weeks ago, at 4:30 a.m. on the deck of a great ship, I stood against the rail seeing, for the first time in six days, land instead of sea. The sky was yet dark, stickered with a Hollywood moon. From horizon to horizon stretched the lights of New York’s boroughs, the representative city of my country, the United States of America. 

Unexpected tears were in my eyes as I saw what millions of immigrants, as well as homecoming American, have seen — “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

I thought of this when reading Rob Sigler’s Nov. 6 column.

Christianity, the dominant and mightiest religion in this country, persecuted? For constitutionally not being allowed to pray aloud in a public realm that also belongs to Americans of a different faith?  It is for the people of the Christian faith to help ensure the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists have, in this country, the same rights as they.

We would be poor, indeed, if non-dominant believers failed to receive equal benefits in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Laura Lipsey Bradley

Oxford