Leave it to the gays to take something old and tired and make it exciting again. Radical gay activist group Bash Back has committed the first act of "glamdalism." It's like vandalism, but with pink paint and glitter grenades.

Bash Back, a collective of grassroots militant activist chapters across the country, announced on their website that they defaced the headquarters of gay civil rights group the Human Rights Campaign Headquarters in D.C. this weekend before Sunday afternoon's National Equality March. It's gay-on-gay crime!

HRC headquarters was rocked by an act of glamdalism last night by a crew of radical queer and allied folks armed with pink and black paint and glitter grenades. Beside the front entrance and the inscribed mission statement now reads a tag, "Quit leaving queers behind."

Not that we're promoting something like vandalism (and the damage they did isn't nearly as savage as the verbal attacks on their website), but glamdalism really needs to catch on. If we're going to be protesting things by defacing them, the least we can do is make them pretty and glittery! This picture of the damage on Leslie Ewing's blog about the march. In the future, we're thinking about maybe a forest full of sparkly garden gnomes on Fred Phelps' lawn.

HRC has long been a target of more radical gay factions for what they see as HRC pushing assimilationist attitudes, kowtowing to elected officials, and preserving the status quo. More from Bash Back's statement:

Just like society today, the HRC is run by a few wealthy elites who are in bed with corporate sponsors who proliferate militarism, heteronormativity, and capitalist exploitation. The sweatshops (Nike), war crimes (Lockheed Martin), assaults on working class people (Bank of America, Deloitte, Chase Bank, Citi Group, Wachovia Bank) and patriarchy (American Apparel) caused by their sponsors is a hypocrisy for an organization with "human rights" in their name.

Of course, not everyone is as excited about glamdalism as we are, especially during a news cycle when Barack Obama and Lady Gaga's penis are putting a big spotlight on the gay civil rights movement. Glamdalism as a concept is totally rad (as well as radical) but next time, why don't we turn it on a target that is really oppressing us, rather than a group that tries to help. In the early '90s, ACT UP! covered Jesse Helm's house with a condom. That's what we talking about! And don't go doing anything illegal, kids. Prison is never pretty, no matter how much pink paint and glitter grenades you have.