Newcomers Join Egg Roll Line

"As long as that's all they do, the leis, that's okay," said Lisa Padres, 34, who lives near Chantilly. "I just wish they would just go dressed like everyone else and not stick out. That would be better."

Padres waited in line with two friends all night, the trio wearing fuzzy bunny ears. They read Vogue and played Texas Hold 'Em.

Padres said she worried that the gay and lesbian presence might force her to explain homosexuality to her 4-year-old son, should he ask why the group was wearing rainbow leis. "To me, once they identify themselves as a group, that's a protest," she said.

For Barb Wrigley, the time in line for tickets was hardly a protest. It was a liberation. She spent a decade as a lesbian mother in Alexandria, never summoning the gumption to come to the event when her two children, now 14 and 16, were young enough to participate.

"It was just another thing I didn't think I could do as a lesbian mom. I wouldn't have felt welcome. Or, you know, comfortable," said Wrigley, 51.

She stood in line to get five tickets for other gay parents who couldn't spend the night at the Ellipse but want to take part in the egg roll.

Many of the gay parents made plans to bail out if they were met by protesters. Some of the people in line whispered as they walked by and pointed, but little else happened.

One woman in a lawn chair shouted, "I'm glad you made it" to a group of folks in rainbow leis, then nudged the friend sitting next to her. "Those are the gays," she explained.

Some of the newcomers enjoyed the attention.

"This is an opportunity for people to see that gay people have long-term relationships and families, like everyone else," said Daniel Gri of Oakton. He waited in line with his partner, James Abbott.