"I hate black people... er, I mean abortion! Yeah, abortion!"

The New York Times has a piece on how the Catholic vote is split between McCain and Obama. The people who prioritise legislating forced-pregnancy (aka 'pro life') above the wellbeing of the country are obviously going to vote for John McCain. Catholics who realise that just because they follow a particular religion doesn't mean they have to force everyone else to as well, and that things like health, education and not killing millions of people by starting wars on false pretexts are quite a lot more important than stopping someone whose sexual and reproductive life is none of their business from obtaining a legal abortion, are going to vote for Obama.

Apart from the ones who are such dyed-in-the-wool racists that they are putting their usual principles aside to vote for McCain because OBAMA IS BLACK! OMG!

What cracked me up, though, is that only one of them was prepared to say it out loud:

Paul MacDonald, a retired social worker mingling over coffee after Mass at Holy Rosary, said he had voted for Mr. Kerry four years ago and Mrs. Clinton in the primary but now planned to vote for Mr. McCain because of “the life issue.”

Let's see, is this a genuine (albeit nutty) belief in the absolute sanctity of the human foetus, or a transparent attempt to veil the fact that he's not voting for Obama because Obama is black?

Hmmm.

John Kerry- pro choice

Hillary Clinton- pro choice

Barack Obama- pro choice

And we are to believe that Paul MacDonald chooses now, just a couple of months after voting for Hillary Clinton in the primaries, to start pretending to care about preventing women from having access to safe, legal abortions?

While you're at it, I have these magic beans for sale...

One parishioner ruled out voting for Mr. Obama explicitly because he is black. “Are they going to make it the Black House?” Ray McCormick asked, to embarrassed hushing from a half dozen others gathered around the rectory kitchen. (Five of the six, all lifelong Democrats who supported Mrs. Clinton in the primary, said they now lean toward Mr. McCain.)

Yeah. It's ok to think it. It's ok to allude to it in conversation with potentially like-minded peers, until it becomes evident that those peers are just as racist, upon which time it becomes acceptable dinner-party conversation. But you would never say it out loud to just anyone, let alone to the New York Times! Your pathetic bigotry will be on display to the entire country, if not the world! Shhhhh!