Easter Egg Roll Delay for Gay Families

gay families at the White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday. We picked up our tickets this morning, which is when we also learned just how the White House plans to handle it, contrary to what’s been reported about their reaction.

The White House indicated it did not plan to make an issue of gay and lesbian families at the event.

The Bush White House plans to keep us as far away from the Bush family as possible. For starters, Dubya will be as far away as he can get.

But the President’s schedule gives a hint: For much of the morning, the President will be in Sterling, Va., touring Europa Stone Distributors, Inc., and holding a "Roundtable on Taxes and the Economy." That promises to be a staid respite from what could be a raucous day back home.
And while Laura is hosting the event, it’s not likely we’ll see her either. We found out this morning that all of our tickets, even the ones for those who’d been waiting in line since Friday afternoon, are not for the start of the event at 8:00 a.m. Our tickets are for noon. My guess is that the White House simply reserved the morning tickets for handpicked families more representative of their base. After all, it’s typical for the Bush White House to prop the president up in front of hand-picked audiences, rather than expose him to people and ideas that don’t conform with his ideology. As usual, the Bush White House is afraid of ordinary Americans; afraid of a group of queers and a bunch of kids.

Of course, the White House is in a kind of Catch-22. No matter how much they’d like to, they can’t cancel the event or keep our families out. The media has the story now and either move would show the Bush White House in a negative light. On the other hand, despite claims of keeping the event "open to all," they can’t welcome our families without pissing off their base.
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