I really like the diversity of faiths Sinclair presents to the ambassadors at the end; it's a nice touch. But at the same time, it does rather point up the way that all the other races have been reduced to a single ceremony; there's an unfortunate tendency in SF for all alien races to be monocultures, single coherent blocks with one language, one belief system, one aesthetic and fashion and music.

Yes, that bugged me a bit, too. Especially if it was the Earth government that came up with the 'dominant culture' parameter -- then Earth magically gets to break it?