Is Mardi Gras another Halloween to the religious right?

Apparently Mardi Gras is now getting the same damnation shade eye from the Religious Right as does Halloween. When a stranger observed me today wearing beads and smiled that I had "the Mardi Gras spirit," a woman nearby corrected him to say it was Shrove Tuesday. When I jokingly asked what that was, she stiffened up to say it was the name of the day for Christians. To which I replied, "So is Mardi Gras" and walked off. I encountered a lot of this kind of You're-Going-to-Hell-and-I'm-Not attitude when writing American Voudou, which deals with violently repressive white "Christian" religious/racial intolerance to African theology. I don't think it's an accident that the main city that celebrates Mardi Gras in the U.S. is majority black. Today I got a twinge of that same feeling. The more things change.....