“Lord, how glad I’ll be to git rid o’ him!” Peters said in an undertone to Hite. “He hev mighty nigh argufied me ter death,—’bout sperits, an’ witches, an’ salvation, an’ law, an’ craps, an’ horse-flesh, an’ weather signs. […] ”

He stood for a moment taking in the effulgence.

Rectal tracheal gills: lamelliform structures in the rectum of the nymphs of some Odonata, supplied with trachea and tracheoles and serving as respiratory organs.

You gotta be fuckin' kidding me. I never had a doubt in my mind that the audience was applauding for the song and not the political statement (it was at the end of the song, recall). Seems like a complete nontroversy to me. Furthermore, the remark is decidedly not anti-abortion!