WASHINGTON It had to happen: Washington's culture wars have now reached the Easter Bunny. Next Monday, some 200 gay families are planning to attend the annual White House Easter Egg Roll to showcase themselves to the nation and President George W. Bush. But some religious conservatives say the families are "crashing" the public event and exploiting children for political ends.
"We're not protesting the president's policies on gay families," insisted Jennifer Chrisler, the executive director of the Family Pride Coalition, the organizer of the gay families attending the event. "We are, however, helping him understand that gay families exist in this country and deserve the rights and protections that all families need."
Not so, said Mark Tooley, the director of the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, an influential conservative group.
"It's facetious and not very persuasive for Family Pride to say they're not making a political statement," Tooley said in an interview last week. In the conservative Weekly Standard magazine in January, Tooley called the gay families crashers and surmised that President Rutherford B. Hayes, who held the first public White House Easter Egg roll in 1878, never would have imagined the controversy that the event was stirring up more than a century later.
The current hostess of the egg roll, Laura Bush, has adopted a neutral position.
"All families are welcome to attend the Easter Egg Roll, provided they comply with the rules," Susan Whitson, Laura Bush's press secretary, said Friday. "No more than two adults per group, and at least one child under the age of 8."
