Today the Anti-Defamation League surprisingly and inexplicably released a statement opposing the Park51 community center: Statement On Islamic Community Center Near Ground Zero.

Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.

For a civil rights organization to take the position that feelings are more important than civil rights is, frankly, stunning.

And it’s even more stunning that the ADL acknowledges the open bigotry of many Park51 opponents, but still very publicly supports them.

Humorist Will Rogers once said about the repeal of Prohibition, “Repeal is all right, but the wrong people are for it.” In this case, the wrong people are against Park51, and if Abe Foxman and the ADL can’t keep their personal feelings out of the issue, they should have just kept quiet instead of handing the Bigot Brigade a public relations gift. What a disgrace.