Rhea Butcher: Trump’s Indifference to Gay Rights Is Dangerous

Comedian Rhea Butcher (@midnight, Take My Wife) articulates the difficulty she’s had reaching out to Trump voters that may not identify as homophobes, but passively supported incredibly homophobic lawmakers on the long running podcast “Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend”.

It’s an argument that refreshingly doesn’t get entangled in Trump’s persona when Butcher says, “I am unsure if Donald Trump is a homophobe. I don’t think he is; I don’t give a shit if he is at this point… because he hasn’t said anything contradictory to the terrible stuff that’s gone on.” The always-complex entangling of the personal and the political has become indistinguishable now; conservative voters might personally tolerate or accept people of other sexualities and ethnicities, but by voting for a regime that doesn’t actively protect those groups, they ensure those individuals feel unsafe. Communicating over political, cultural, regional and socioeconomic divides as well as defensiveness and passion is near impossible; Butcher shares that, “the thing that I’m struggling with is – How do you engage with someone who, when you’re simply, like smiling, you’re smug. If you’re being kind, you’re smug, or you’re talking down to them. And if you’re angry, well, you’re just a dumb angry liberal. Like, I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell you, like, I just want to feel safe walking down the street.”

Rosen asks Butcher if she’s worried about the legality of her marriage to comedian Cameron Esposito and Butcher shares that although she lives in liberal California and was able to afford getting comfortable, she’s really worried about the queer community nationwide. When Butcher shares that she talked to a woman that “said, ‘yeah we didn’t really want to get married because we didn’t want to be on some registry somewhere'”, the well-founded paranoia many are tensing into as January 20th nears is palpable in tiny logistics some of us don’t have to consider.

“Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend” is a five-year old podcast based in Los Angeles and hosted by “The Adam Carolla Show” ex-correspondent, Alison Rosen.  Listen to Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend podcast here.

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Rachel Crowe

The most notable lies Rachel Crowe has ever told were that she has 10 children (no twins), she’s running a marathon retracing the path her ancestors took to evade the IRS and that she found childcare for 10 on a Saturday night. She’s also a stand-up comedian and dog walker living in Los Angeles. Follow Rachel on Twitter @Racheddar or on Instagram @thelma_and_disease. Or don’t, but at least appreciate those fresh hot puns.
Rachel Crowe
Rachel Crowe
The most notable lies Rachel Crowe has ever told were that she has 10 children (no twins), she’s running a marathon retracing the path her ancestors took to evade the IRS and that she found childcare for 10 on a Saturday night. She’s also a stand-up comedian and dog walker living in Los Angeles. Follow Rachel on Twitter @Racheddar or on Instagram @thelma_and_disease. Or don’t, but at least appreciate those fresh hot puns.