Bathroom bill spawns glitter bomb protest

State Rep. Debbie Riddle's district office in Montgomery County received a "glitter bomb" in the mail, reported the Texas Tribune, in response to which a DPS captain sent around a document (pdf) to legislative offices titled "Glitter Bombing: Weapon of Choice for Gay Rights, Pro-Choice Activists." A glitter bomb is a spring loaded package which spews glitter around the room when it's opened. So elevating its status to weaponry is a stretch, but we are in the Era of Hype and Hysteria where overstatement is the watchword of the hour. Every minor threat must be hyped to the Nth degree: It's a rule.

The Tribune offered no suggestion why Debbie Riddle might have been victimized except for a reference in the document from DPS declaring that "The common denominator among [targets] is a conservative orientation and opposition to gay rights, especially marriage equality." But I doubt this had anything to do with marriage equality. Grits would bet dollars to donuts this protest was about telling transgendered folk where to go to the bathroom.

Grits felt a momentary twinge of guilt upon hearing that Riddle's district staff were glitter bombed, since this blog broke the story about the bill that is almost certainly the proximate cause of the episode. But somebody would eventually have noticed the legislation and the reaction was bound to be negative, whatever the source from which folks heard it. To be clear, while Riddle's bill is goddawful, I also don't condone harassing her staff or creating extra work for the cleaning crew (anyone with kids knows that glitter is incredibly hard to remove).

Indeed, from the perspective of trying to prevent Riddle's bathroom bills from passing, such pranks aren't just childish but counterproductive. These sorts of juvenile tactics don't help anyone's cause except, ironically, Debbie Riddle's.