The Anti-Defamation League has issued a pathetic statement opposing Cordoba House, aka the "Ground Zero Mosque." While the ADL condemns the bigotry galvanizing Cordoba's opponents, and thinks proponents have "every right" to build there... it says they shouldn't anyway. Huh?

This single, amazing paragraph from the statement of the ADL, the premier Jewish civil rights organization, has already been widely mocked for its apparent animosity towards logic:

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.

So they have every right to build there and may even have a "positive message about Islam" to send, by showing that the United States does not lump all Muslims in with Al Qaeda. "Some" opponents may be bigoted enough to believe that a Muslim community center two blocks from Ground Zero is offensive, because Muslims = 9/11. Well, the bigots should win anyway! Productive day at the office, ADL.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, who's raising a good chunk of cash off of this whole anti-"Ground Zero Mosque" movement, tells Salon that building a mosque near Ground Zero "would be like putting a statue of Mussolini or Marx at Arlington National Cemetery."

Strong arguments, all around.

[Image via AP]