Once again, the Colorado judicial system is being asked to consider the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, a small business whose owner was asked—in what appears to have been a deliberate attempt to create grounds for a suit—to design a confection celebrating a “gender transition.” The owner, a devout Christian, demurred because of his religious beliefs. In an amicus brief filed on behalf of the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty and several other organizations, Ian Speir and Howard Slugh consider some of the possible consequences of a ruling against Masterpiece:

While the litigated cases thus far have largely involved artists who identify with the Christian faith, artists of other, minority faiths—Jews and Muslims in particular—will be affected by the outcomes of these cases and the rules they establish.

The First Amendment protects all artists, and that protection is especially important to those with minority or countercultural beliefs. It is not just that the First Amendment tolerates difference and dissent. It ensures that expression is protected from the majority’s proclivity to silence speech and punish those who dare utter it. More fundamentally, it seeks to foster speech pluralism. That constitutional vision, grounded in the unique American creed of individual dignity and choice, requires that individuals, and artists especially, be able to express their beliefs without fear, be able to shape their own artistic messages—what they say and what they don’t—free of punishment and coercion.

When artists create, when they speak up, and when they keep silent, they are contributing to a diverse marketplace of ideas. Many will disagree with their message, and many will be troubled by their silence. That is as it should be.

Robert Clark explains why the resumption of hostilities is both just and necessary:

These latest Israeli strikes come after weeks of consistent Palestinian provocation; they have repeatedly broken the terms of the cease-fire which they claimed they were so desperate for. There have been numerous [unsuccessful] bus bombings near Tel Aviv and Palestinian-instigated clashes in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in captivity.

In fact, Hamas and their Palestinian supporters . . . have always known that they can sit back, parade dead Israeli hostages live on social media, and receive hundreds of their own convicted terrorists and murderers back in return. They believed they could get away with the October 7 pogrom.

One hopes Hamas’s leaders will get the message. Meanwhile, many inside and outside Israel seem to believe that, by resuming the fighting, Jerusalem has given up on rescuing the remaining hostages. But, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, this assertion misunderstands the goals of the present campaign. “Experience within the IDF and Israeli intelligence,” Ben-Yishai writes, “has shown that such pressure is the most effective way to push Hamas toward flexibility.” He outlines two other aims:

The second objective was to signal to Hamas that Israel is not only targeting its military wing—the terror army that was the focus of previous phases of the war up until the last cease-fire—but also its governance structure. This was demonstrated by the targeted elimination of five senior officials from Hamas’s political and civilian administration. . . . The strikes also served as a message to mediators, particularly Egypt, that Israel opposes Hamas remaining in any governing or military capacity in post-war Gaza.

The third objective was to create intense military pressure, coordinated with the U.S., on all remaining elements of the Shiite “axis of resistance,” including Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas, and Iran.