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Without a doubt, the hot-button issue this week centered on plans to build a $100 million Islamic center and mosque near the site of the World Trade Center.

The debate over the center, known as the Cordoba House, has grown heated. Opposition has come from many quarters, including the Anti-Defamation League, which claimed building the center near the site of the 9/11 terror attacks would prove an unbearable affront to the families of the victims.

The ADL statement generated its own debate within the Jewish community. Countervailing Jewish voices chided the ADL for straying from its mission to fight religious bigotry, including anti-Muslim bigotry.

This is one of those disputes in which both sides put forth legitimate arguments.

Opponents urged those behind the project to consider the feelings of the 9/11 families. Fanatics committed the Sept. 11 attacks in the name of Islam, which may make a mosque two blocks from the site hard for some to stomach.

But we agree with the critics of the ADL, which has done so much over the years to combat bigotry. The ADL got this one wrong.

For one thing, it is wrong to lump all Muslims together with the monsters that toppled the World Trade Center, attacked the Pentagon and hijacked United 93. Muslims, too, died on that awful day.

There are those within Islam who work for peace, understanding and interfaith dialogue. The Muslims behind Cordoba House have shown they fit into that camp.

It makes sense that the Jewish community, indeed all Americans, including 9/11 families, would want to support moderate voices within Islam. If there is to be any hope for interfaith relations, those voices must drown out the shrill, hateful voices of radical Islam.

Equally important, just as Jews have thrived under the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of America, so too must those freedoms be extended to all, including Muslim Americans.

As Rabbi Roberto Graetz of Lafayette’s Temple Isaiah says in our story on page 6a this week, “Either we promote freedom of religious expression or we don’t.”

As much as we sympathize with 9/11 families, the Americans behind Cordoba House have every right to acquire the property in lower Manhattan and build their center, which they say will become a beacon of tolerance.

To thwart these plans would amount to an unacceptable breach of the First Amendment.

The debate over Cordoba House is typical of a vigorous, sometimes contentious democracy. Fortunately, in this instance, democracy won and the center will be built.