Vicky Hartzler's Gay Nephew Claps Back at Plea Against Gay Marriage
Andrew Hartzler, the gay nephew of Republican Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler, who cried while begging the House not to pass the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA), has a few thoughts about her speech.
To recap, in an unsuccessful bid to halt the legislation on passing gay marriage, Vicky said, “I hope and pray that my colleagues will find the courage to join me in opposing this misguided and this dangerous bill.”
It didn’t take long for her speech to go viral, where it attracted much commentary from supporters. Among the responses was Andrew Hartzler, a 23-year-old living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who knows this Congresswoman more affectionately as “Aunt Vicky.”
“At first I just thought that it was an old video because that kind of rhetoric is quite common from my aunt,”Andrew told BuzzFeed News. When he realized it was from this past week, he added, “Yeah, I wasn’t really surprised.”
He also noted that he didn’t believe she was performing for an audience. Andrew came out to his Aunt Vicky in February, and his relationship with both her and his conservative, religious parents has suffered because of it.
In his TikTok video, Andrew addressed Vicky’s fear of the RFMA attacking people of faith. He said, “Aunt Vicky, that’s not right. Institutions of faith like religious universities are not being silenced. They’re being empowered by the U.S. government to discriminate against tens of thousands of LGBTQ students because of religious exemptions, but they still receive federal funding.”
Andrew is also part of a federal class action lawsuit against the Department of Education to prohibit religious schools from receiving funding if they discriminate against LGBTQ+ students. Part of that battle came after surviving religious schooling and conversion therapy in 2017 after his father sent him to Oral Roberts University. The school has an honor code prohibiting “homosexual activity.” Although Vicky will leave Congress next year after another unsuccessful bid to secure her nomination for Senator, Andrew still wishes she could understand how harmful her words are.
In response to Vicky’s claims that her religious freedoms will be ignored under the RFMA, Andrew said, “You’re not. You’re just gonna have to learn to coexist with all of us. And I’m sure it’s not that hard.”
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