The last acceptable form of bigotry

[Barretboy]

I was listening to the radio the other day and heard a guest commentator say that the last acceptable form of bigotry in the United States is the bigotry against the Orthodox of Catholic Church. At first I took the comment with a grain of salt, but later began thinking about it. In the last 50 years, we have (rightly so) eliminated the acceptable nature of bigotry against African-Americans, Jews (as evidenced by the recent Ann Coulter fiasco), Asians and to a great extent , homosexuals. I recently came across a billboard promoting the Folsom street fair; a gay pride parade. Here's the billboard:



The thing I took away from this advertisement? Mock Christians: Good; yet confront any group other then christian your deemed a bigot, racist, homophobe.

Philip Jenkins, an Episcopalian historian, in The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice maintains that some people who otherwise avoid offending members of racial, religious, ethnic or gender groups have no reservations about venting their hatred of Catholics. Earlier in the twentieth century, Harvard professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. characterized prejudice against the Catholics as "the deepest bias in the history of the American people" and Yale professor Peter Viereck once commented that "Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals."

Now, I might be alone in this idea. I'm interested to see what other people think about the subject.