Protesters Take on Santorum in S.C.

Antigay Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum had a few confrontations with LGBT protesters in South Carolina Thursday, seeing his speech interrupted by glitter-bombers and being told he had "spilled queer blood."

A few minutes into Santorum's speech at a rally in Mount Pleasant with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, about 20 demonstrators tossed glitter into the air and began shouting at the candidate, the Charleston City Paper reports. As police led them to a spot farther from the stage, they objected by chanting, "Put the queers in the back!"

As Santorum was leaving the podium, a solitary transgender activist, 20-year-old College of Charleston student Kneena Raheja, yelled at the candidate, "Mr. Santorum, you have spilled queer blood!" the website Buzzfeed reports. Raheha, who was born biologically male but identifies as female, displayed a "Trans Visibility" sign at the event.

Protesters emphasized the importance of confronting Santorum. Unlike Newt Gingrich, his main rival for the social conservative vote in Saturday's South Carolina primary, Santorum "really believes what he's doing," Arsenio McCormick, one of the group of 20, told the City Paper. Gingrich "is just trying to play to that tune to try to get some votes," McCormick said.

Raheja told Buzzfeed, "I think people like Rick Santorum are actively violent towards the queer population. I'm just here to let him know that the longer he silences us, the longer he does not acknowledge that we, the trans population, exist, the harder we will bash back." She added that the rest of the Republican presidential aspirants are just as bad as Santorum: "They're all rich old white men that don't know my experience."

Watch video from the protest below.