On April 17 [corrected date] the annual White House Easter Egg Roll is being held on the South Lawn of the White House. (White House announcement.) In connection with it, the White House has posted online an "Easter Word Search"puzzle-- no religious terms used in it.
However, this year the event is likely to be more politicized than usual. Some 200 gay families, organized by the National Pride Coalition, will be attending. The White House event is open to anyone who stands in line early enough to get tickets, so long as the person is part of a group with no more than 2 adults and with at least one child under 8. The NPC plans, aimed at introducing gay families as "real" families to the President and the public, are disussed in the International Herald Tribune, by Gay.com and by the Scripps-Howard News Service. Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition complained: "For crying out loud, at the Easter Egg roll? This is a family event." She called the plans "very distasteful", saying it was inappropriate to politicize the egg roll and to use children to do so. However, Peter Watkins, deputy press secretary to Laura Bush, who is in charge of the egg roll, said: "It's an event that has a great tradition and all families are welcome to attend."
