OakleyOriginals, CC BY 2.0 DEED, via Flickr, Cropped by Resist the Mainstream

The White House’s Easter Egg art contest updated its guidelines for 2024, preventing participants, primarily children of National Guard members, from submitting religious Easter egg designs. 

The “Celebrating National Guard Families” art event at the White House this year is one of many Easter traditions held by the President. However, a flyer for the contest states that an Easter egg design submission “must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements.” 

“As part of the White House Easter traditions, America’s Egg Farmers – for nearly 50 years – have proudly presented an intricately decorated Commemorative Easter Egg to the First Lady of the United States. In 2021, the White House expanded on this longstanding tradition by displaying youth-designed Easter eggs in the White House East Colonnade,” the flyer explains.

“On behalf of First Lady Jill Biden, The Adjutants General of the National Guard are asking youth from National Guard families across the United States and all U.S. territories to submit artwork inspired by the theme ‘Celebrating our Military Families,’” the flyer continues.

Children are asked to design eggs with images based on their own lives. “Selected designs representing the unique experience and stories of National Guard children will be brought to life on real hen eggs by talented egg artists from across the country and displayed at the White House this Easter and Passover season,” the flyer says.

Children also can't promote material that promotes “bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any group or individual or promotes discrimination based on race, gender, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age” in their designs. 

The White House also announced that the annual White House Egg Roll would follow an “EGGcuation” theme for the event. 

“A teacher for more than 30 years, First Lady Jill Biden is continuing her theme of 'EGGucation' for the event, transforming the South Lawn and Ellipse into a school community, full of fun educational activities for children of all ages to enjoy,” a statement from the White House read. An estimated 40,000 people are expected to take part in Monday's annual event. 

American Egg Board President and CEO Emily Metz spoke with Fox News after news of the decision broke, saying “I think it's important to know that everything we do from a marketing and promotion standpoint, because we are a check off, we have very strict guidelines under the USDA.” 

She added, “We all have to follow kind of guidelines, which essentially, number one, we can't discriminate against any other commodity…. We can't go out there and say, ‘hey, pork is awful and we only should only get eggs.’ We have to be very, clear about that. We also can promote one type of egg over the other type of egg. So we have to be, excuse the pun, egg-nostic. And we also, most importantly, can't discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual identity, any of that.” 

Metz insisted, “So when we say, can't be overtly religious, we just can't be seen to be promoting one religion over the other, the same way we can't be seen to be promoting one political viewpoint or ideology over the other. We have to be totally neutral in everything we do and have it just be focused on egg promotion and marketing activities. And this is obviously a huge opportunity for us to showcase the incredible eggs in a really fun and unique way.” 

Despite this, President Joe Biden is facing increasing criticism over his “Catholic faith.” Biden has repeatedly stated that he is a “devout Catholic,” but controversies around his decisions, many of which go directly against Christian belief, have called that into question for many. Even Pope Francis has labeled Biden’s stance on abortion as “incoherence.” 

Most recently, Biden drew significant pushback for his decision to place “Transgender Day of Visibility” on Easter Sunday of this year, generating intense controversy amongst Christians. 

“Our ‘catholic’ president has chosen the highest holiday on the Christian calendar to celebrate transgenderism. This man is a demon,” wrote the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh in a fiery post on X.