Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s Gay Nephew Responds to Viral Video of Her Crying over ‘Dangerous’ Same-Sex Marriage Act – Yahoo Eurosport UK
Lauren Victoria Burke/AP/Shutterstock; Henry Ninde/Courtesy Andrew Hartzler/Instagram Rep. Vicky Hartzler and activist Andrew Hartzler
Before the Respect for Marriage Act went to a final vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday morning, Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler took the chamber floor to call the bill “misguided and dangerous.” She broke into tears as she implored fellow lawmakers to join her in opposing the pro-equality legislation.
The bill, which federally protects the right to same-sex and interracial marriages, passed with 258 yea votes shortly thereafter — and although a total of 169 nay votes were cast, all by Republicans, Rep. Hartzler became the sole face of the opposition when her tearful speech almost immediately began making the rounds on social media.
Over in Oklahoma, LGBTQ+ activist Andrew Hartzler was just getting a move on Thursday morning when a friend first tagged him in a post about his conservative aunt. The video of her speech didn’t have many likes and was posted by an unfamiliar account, so he shrugged it off.
But within hours, Vicky’s face was everywhere, spewing words of disapproval toward an already vulnerable population, one that Andrew is a part of.
[embedded content]
“My initial thought when I saw it was, ‘Oh my, is she crying because she now knows that I’m gay?'” Andrew, 24, tells PEOPLE, adding that he began overthinking her speech, imagining that she was getting emotional because she was envisioning him marrying a man and being sent to hell.
“I still don’t know why she has such negative outlooks or perceptions of gay people,” he says. But he didn’t like knowing that while he was working hard to fight against LGBTQ discrimination — he’s been a vocal plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit to strip discriminatory faith-based colleges of federal funding — someone who shares his last name was in Washington working to perpetuate it. “I would like my name to be associated with love.”
So he opened his TikTok and, at the risk of starting family drama, publicly called “Aunt Vicky” out.
Andrew admits that he was a little nervous to criticize his aunt in such a public forum — in just 11 hours, his TikTok received more than 640K views.
In the past, he wasn’t quite sure how to handle her more extreme political views, but Vicky’s display of what he calls “hateful rhetoric and blatant discrimination” on Thursday put him in a position where he began to feel responsible for righting her wrongs.
“Negative rhetoric spread by the religious right demonizes LGBTQ people and basically turns their following completely against them,” Andrew tells PEOPLE. “It can become very dangerous, like we saw in Colorado. Hate is taught, it’s not something you’re born with.”
RELATED: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer Celebrate After Congress Passes Historic Respect for Marriage Act
Though he has some quiet cheerleaders in his extended family — and at Vicky’s church, which he attended as a child — “they would never show their opposition publicly.”
In theory, Andrew wouldn’t either, then he remembers what’s at stake. “It goes back to her actions and her words. They ultimately have real-life consequences, like violence against people in our community.”
“Wherever there’s hate,” he says, “you gotta put out love to cover it up.”