After some deliberation, New York City’s Yeshiva University (YU) declined an application for official status from an undergraduate gay and lesbian group, the Pride Alliance. But Lynn Kotler, a New York state judge, recently ruled that the school must reverse course, on the grounds that it is not entitled to a religious exemption from the New York City Human Rights Law. YU has now petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. Dan McLaughlin analyzes the constitutional issues at hand:

Judge Kotler ruled that Yeshiva is not really a religious, rather than an educational, institution. She relied on the fact that the university had changed its charter in 1967 to declare an educational primary purpose and that it now offers degrees in many secular subjects. She also decided that the university’s religious argument was compromised because some faculty dissented from the decision and because the university since the 1990s had permitted such groups in its schools of law and medicine. . . .

This is, on both grounds, an unreasonably crabbed view of what it means to be a religious believer or a religious institution. While Yeshiva trains rabbis, it also trains a great many other students who will have to earn their living in the wider world—as businesspeople, doctors, dentists, lawyers, scientists, social workers, teachers, and all manner of other occupations. No religion can long survive if it is permitted to train only ministers in the faith. The university’s greater willingness to compromise the purity of its religious message in its law and medical schools is, likewise, a real-world acknowledgement that graduate and professional schools aren’t colleges: they cater to students who have reached full adulthood and may, in many cases, be married people in their 30s with significant work experience who have likely already set themselves on their faith journey.

As for the fact that some faculty disagreed with the decision, one must ask if the judge has ever met any university faculty, any religious believers, or any Jews. If religious authorities may require their believers to follow only those doctrines that nobody disputes, that would swiftly be the end of all forms of religious authority.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.