Dolly Parton‘s never been one to speak out much on politics.
She’s turned down the Presidential Medal of Freedom from both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden because she didn’t want to be seen as supporting one side over the other.
And in an interview last month with The Guardian, Dolly explained quite simply why she doesn’t engage in public political discussions, saying that it’s just “polarizing,” even within her own family:
“Because you’re going to lose half your audience.
Even within my own family, especially the last few years since Trump and Biden, all that, it’s like we can’t even go to a family dinner any more.
Especially if people are drinking – they get in a damn fight at the table.”
I mean, smart.
But Dolly did speak on one political issue during a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
The Tennessee resident was asked her opinion on some of the legislation that’s come out of her home state recently that’s focused on transgender issues.
A recent law that was scheduled to go into effect in Tennessee would have banned Tennessee health care providers from providing hormone treatments, puberty blockers, or surgeries for children who identify as transgender. However, the law was blocked by a federal judge before it could take effect.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the law, but opponents are now asking the United States Supreme Court to step in and rule on whether it should be allowed to go into effect, arguing that the law is discriminatory and violates the Equal Protection Clause, as well as the Due Process Clause, of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
During an interview on her new rock album, Dolly was asked to weigh in on what The Hollywood Reporter called “a bill that allows for discrimination against trans people” (which obviously has nothing to do with her rock album, but this is where we are now).
And Dolly yet again tried to avoid going too deep into the politics of it, while criticizing the legislation for hurting people who identify as transgender:
“Well, what I always say, “I just want everybody to be treated good.”
I try not to get into the politics of everything. I try to get into the human element of it. I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees.
I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians. I’ve got drunks. I’ve got drug addicts — all within my own family. I know and love them all, and I do not judge.
And I just see how broken-hearted they get over certain things and I know how real they are. I know how important this is to them.
That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton, you know, the way people know me. If there’s something to be judged, that is God’s business. But we are all God’s children and how we are is who we are.”
Kind of makes her friendship with Kid Rock seem all the more interesting…
