And so began the great Lesbian Buster Bunny controversy.

Back in Washington, D.C., newly minted Bush administration Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was hopping mad. She wrote a letter to the director of PBS objecting to the normalization of same-sex parents on public TV.

"Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television," she objected. Spellings went on to ask for a "refund" of public monies, concluding, "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode."

In short, the culture war was back on, and I was soon to be in the middle of it.

The funding of PBS is appropriated biannually by Congress and by direct grants, including by the U.S. Department of Education, Viewers Like You, and lastly, by Viewers Like Me. On the White House lawn that Monday, well aware of the months-long brouhaha involving my character (I was Method!), I was already attentive to the need to put my best rabbit's foot forward.

In the interest of our nationally recognized Easter Egg Roll, I was to play the part of an engaging, photogenic rabbit before visitors of all ages, waving a hand in welcome to one and all and not speaking a word. Those were strict rules—and besides, the Secret Service was watching.

To get to be Buster Baxter the Bunny for Easter at the White House didn't "just happen," either. I rose through the ranks. I started off as Grover of "Near and Far" fame from "Sesame Street" for the National Book Festival, the pride of our first lady, Laura Bush. This was followed by a "performance" as Clifford the Big Red Dog for a special White House Christmas party, honoring injured military officers coming home from war and their families. Buster was to be my swan song. To be a moonlighting bunny on Easter for George W. Bush, well, it just doesn't get any better than that for an actor in a fur suit.

But then Spellings showed up that year —as the egg roll's host. And to my dismay, a young administration staffer whispered to a PBS staffer, who whispered to my boss. And just like that, Buster was busted and banished from the lawn.

Instead of entertaining kids and watching the annual egg roll, I spent the rest of the day in an East Wing dressing room adorned with large photographs of artists and performers from Texas—Selina and Jessica Simpson—eating sandwiches and lamenting the effective end of a budding secondary revenue stream. The show went on without Buster and me.

My Buster moment was just one small casualty in a long fight over tolerance and diversity in publicly funded media. By this Easter, there had been a major change in support for gay marriage and gay families, not to mention the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. But public broadcasting remains imperiled.

Sadly, the culture war is still on.