STEPPING IN IT: Tom Blackwell sent this item from the Fort Worth Startlegram, which I reprint entire since they want registration to read.

As if things in the Texas Legislature are not in enough of a stink, a Dallas gay-activist group said last week that it plans to begin mailing cow manure to senators who favor a ban on same-sex marriages.

The group, on its new Web site, said it has "begun shipping pink-painted cattle excrement" to 20 lawmakers. Republican Sens. Kim Brimer of Fort Worth, Jane Nelson of Lewisville and Chris Harris of Arlington are on the "send poo" mailing list.

If the group's not careful, it could step into a real mess, including fines and a stay in federal prison, said Amanda McMurrey, spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Fort Worth.

"Excrement, regardless of origin, is mailable only under certain conditions," McMurrey said. Those conditions, she noted, do not include a coat of pink paint.

Which makes me curious to read just what those conditions are for sending cow patties to deserving Solons. It's also a case of carrying coals to Newcastle, since the last thing those demagogues need is any more of their principal component.