Sometimes in life, you have to take on your own side when they are wrong. I have never been afraid to do that. I even went after the "Daylin Leach Fan Club" for the outrage of not existing. It is important to do this out of a respect for intellectual fairness. Plus, it helps keep you awake. I mean making fun of...for example....Sarah Palin is like shooting fish in a barrel. And by that I mean a whole bunch of very large fish, nailed to the bottom of a very small barrel, so they keep still.
I like to think that opposing religious discrimination is one of the things that most motivates me in politics. Of course I also like to think that I'm "Hunky", but my grip on reality will be the subject of a future Blog. So you'd think that a group like the Anti-Defamation League would be right in my wheel house. Plus, their self-professed mission statement says "ADL's ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens." Plus, I'm Jewish, so I'm entitled to free Gefilte Fish at all the meetings.

So Groovy. If any religion anywhere is being discriminated against, or any injustice against any group of people anywhere is being perpetrated, or if Celine Dion starts to record a new album, the ADL will stand up against it. (They don't actually mention the Celine Dion thing on their website, but it should go without saying.) Sadly, recent history suggests that this assumption is not true. On the contrary, on two recent critical tests of their commitment to their basic principles, the ADL has actually come down on the side of religious discrimination and injustice.

The first issue was the Armenian Genocide. For those who do not know, 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by the Turks from 1915-1924 in an effort to eliminate Armenians as a race from that region of the world. Turkey, not embracing the "confess and reconcile" model of Germany, has opted instead for the less satisfying "deny and arrest those who speak the truth" model. In 2007, the US Congress was considering a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Apparently they had already recognized that the sky was blue.

Be that as it may, the national ADL issued a statement OPPOSING, (no, not a really bad typo which was meant to say "supporting") the passage of that resolution. Abraham Foxman, the then head of the ADL said essentially that since Turkey and Israel get along so well, we are willing to go along with their equivalent of holocaust-denial.

I would point out that Turkey's "friendship" toward Israel has now taken the form of boycotts and bizarre anti-Israeli rantings. Turkey has been completely unreliable and in fact hostile to Israel. And with frends like that ...actually, I'm a friend like that, so I probably shouldn't say anything.

But more importantly, can you imagine Mr. Foxman tolerating the US denying the Holocaust because Germany sends a ping-pong team here? I know I would tie myself to the gate of the White House, this time in protest, and not just to meet girls like I did in high school. It seems like there should be one test when determining whether to recognize a genocide, and that should be, was there a genocide? The test should NOT be: Was the genocide perpetrated by a country we like or don't like?

More recently the ADL weighed in on another issue of religious discrimination, but sadly, again, on the side of that discrimination. It seems that a group of Moslems wish to build a Mosque within a few blocks of Ground Zero in New York. Some support the Mosque. Some have objected saying that it would be an insult to build an Islamic house of worship near where so many died on September 11th. Still others only open the newspapers to the horoscopes and believe that it matters whether or not you were born under the sign of a crab.
The ADL stood on principle here. Unfortunately, it was the principle they were founded to oppose. They said that the Mosque should not be built because "it might cause pain" to families of 9-11 victims. A church would be fine there, as would a synagogue, or an Ashram, or presumably a Dank Hell-Cave of the Dark Prince. Just not a Mosque.

Now there are many places where it would be inapropriate to build a House of Worship. The passing lane of the PA turnpike comes to mind, as does Lindsey Lohan's "Party Room". However, any place that you can build any house of worship should be open to all religions.

The Moslem religion did not kill 3,000 people on September 11th. 19 pig-poop crazy Moslems did. They no more represent their religion than the self-proclaimed Christians who burnt crosses on the lawns of black people in the south represent Christianity. Would we say that we can't build a church in Alabama because "it might cause pain" to victims of the Klan?

If the ADL objects to historically accurate recognition of religious persecution, and actually supports religious discrimination, it's hard to understand what their on-going purpose could be. It would be like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals coming out in favor of Moose-Catipulting, and dropping live turkeys out of airplanes like sacks of wet cement. I'm done writing checks to the ADL, and the fact that I didn't in the past, and if I had the checks would not have cleared doesn't lessen the impact of my protest.
Daylin