Another pro-choice Catholic politician is being threatened with denial of communion, The New York Times says -- and surprise! it's yet another Democrat, Governor Jim McGreevey of New Jersey.

But tucked in the story is this paragraph -- which suggests once again that the church is playing anti-Democrat hardball:

In New York City today, the Archdiocese confirmed rumors that [John] Kerry might not be invited to the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, the charity fund-raiser sponsored by the Archdiocese of New York that is a national fall ritual, especially in an election year, for Catholic politicians and the church.

I haven't researched this all the way back, but here are Republican Catholics Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki attending the Al Smith dinner in 2002, 2001, and 2000. I don't recall either one ever being turned away from the Al Smith dinner.

If you look at the links, you'll see that a lot of pro-choice pols have attended the dinner in recent years -- among them Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Colin Powell, as well as Giuliani and Pataki. But the pro-choice Democrats in attendance aren't Catholic and the pro-choice Catholics in attendance aren't Democrats.

This may not be exactly what you'd expect if you've been following the discussion of this subject by Atrios and others, but the fact remains: Only in the case of a pro-choice Catholic Democrat does the question of exclusion and denunciation come up.

(UPDATE: Hi to everyone who came here via Atrios -- in case you don't know, this is happening again to a Democrat, this time in Indiana. Scroll up for details, or just click here.)