Ryan Butler

Ryan Townsend Butler is an American politician and filmmaker. He directed the first documentary about same-sex marriage to air on national television in the United States and is the president of the LGBT Democrats of North Carolina. He is married to Chris Sgro, the executive director of Equality North Carolina.

Butler previously served on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission for Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. in Ward 2. He was elected on November 7, 2006 with 87.47% of the vote. He was the first President of the LGBT Democrats of North Carolina and continues to serve in that position. In April 2015 Butler was appointed as Chair of the Council of Review of the North Carolina Democratic Party. On February 6, 2016 he was one of five people elected to a four-year term on the Democratic National Committee by the North Carolina Democratic Party’s State Executive Committee, making him a superdelegate. That marks the first time an out LGBT DNC member has ever been elected by the North Carolina Democratic Party.

Butler's most notable film, A Union in Wait (2001), was an independent documentary film about same-sex marriage which aired on Sundance Channel and screened at more than 20 film festivals world-wide. It was the first documentary about same-sex marriage to air on national television in the United States.

After the release of A Union in Wait, Butler worked as a television editor in Washington, D.C., for ABC 7, the National Geographic Channel, and CNN. In 2008 he moved back to North Carolina, where he now works as an in house counsel at Replacements, Ltd. after working for the North Carolina General Assembly and then as an attorney in private practice.