Regarding your article "Baltimore County schools to consider closing on Muslim holidays" (June 16), millions of people immigrated to the U.S. because they sought freedom, and for generations they tried to rapidly assimilate as citizens.
They learned the language and observed our customs. This homogenization, a common purpose, has made the U.S. both powerful and a refuge for those oppressed.
We are a secular nation. Try to put a creche or the Ten Commandments on public property and you can't do it.
I am opposed to giving any religious group the right to close public schools to observe its holy days. This becomes a case of a minority dictating its will to the majority.
People are always free to leave and go to a nation that is a theocracy, or they can send their children to a religiously sponsored school. Many Catholics and Jews do that. But for a religion to urge that its holidays be given special consideration is counterproductive.
Peter W. Broido, Baltimore