Hartzler's Gay Nephew Speaks Out

by Pa Rock

Missouri Citizen Journalist

Vicky Hartzler, a former high school home economics teacher who left the classroom nearly thirty years ago to pursue a career in politics, has been an extreme right-wing GOP member of Congress from Missouri's 4th congressional district since 2011, but she is currently serving her final days in the House.  This past year Hartzler succumbed to her political ambition and gave up her safe House seat to run for the US Senate to replace retiring Senator Ol' Roy Blunt.  Hartzler had the support of Missouri's other US Senator, Josh "fleet-of-foot" Hawley, who campaigned with her, but she still could only manage a second place finish in the GOP senate primary.

But not to worry because rumors abound in the "show-me" state that Hartzler will run for governor of Missouri in 2024 in a primary election that will likely pit her against Jay Ashcroft, Missouri's current secretary of state and a scion of a very prominent political family in the state.   (Ashcroft is the son of the only sitting United States Senator ever to lose re-election to a dead man.)

As someone who is undoubtedly busy plotting her political comeback, Vicky Hartzler still looks for the cameras when she enters a room in hopes of connecting with the rubes back home.  Earlier this week she was part of a gaggle of GOP Representatives who spoke out against the "Respect for Marriage Act" as it was on the verge of passing the House.  When it was Miss Vicky's turn to speak, she enhanced her performance with a quivering voice and some tears as she extolled her colleagues to vote the bill down.  Hartzler's issue with the legislation, which did eventually pass the House, centered on the part that enshrined the right to "gay marriage" into federal law.

(Jay Ashcroft, Hartzler's likely main opponent in the upcoming governor's race, is also on record as being opposed to the "Respect for Marriage Act," and he recently made headlines when Senator Blunt declined to take a telephone call from him on the matter.  Blunt voted in favor of the legislation.)

Hartzler said that her priority was to protect people who believe in the "true" meaning of marriage.  She said that it was "Christians" and not the LGBTQ Community who were under threat in the US, and that the government was trying to "silence" religious people.  She had her homophobic schtick in good working order and ready to trot out for 2024's Missouri gubernatorial campaign.  It was hillbilly theatre at its finest.

But Vicky Hartzler's 23-yar-old nephew, Andrew Hartzler, is less cynical than this tired old typist.  Young Andrew, who is himself an "out" gay man, said that he believes his aunt is sincere in her homophobic beliefs and not just putting on a show for the cameras.   Andrew, who came out to his parents when he was fourteen and to Aunt Vicky this past February just as her US Senate campaign was cranking up, went on TikTok with a video talking directly to his Aunt Vicky and telling her of his desire not to have the family name connected with hate.  His video was powerful, and several news sources rushed to interview the young man to get him to expand on his views.

In that video to Aunt Vicky, Andrew said:

"It's more like you want the power to force your religious beliefs onto everyone else, and because you don't have that power you feel like you're being silenced.  But you're not.  You're just going to have to learn to coexist with all of us.  And I'm sure it's not that hard."

Andrew Hartzler's personal story is quite compelling.  After he told his parents nine years ago that he was gay, they promptly shuttled him into a "conversion therapy" program to try and "cure" him of his gayness.  It didn't work.  Then, when he was ready for college, Andrew's parents sent him to Oral Robert University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, apparently with the hope that being trapped in that homophobic milieu would provide the cure.  But while at Oral Roberts he met other gay students.  Eventually he was identified as having gay behaviors and the "university" placed him in a conversion therapy program which apparently backfired and strengthened his resolve to live life as God had made him.

Andrew Hartzler is now part of a federal class action lawsuit against the US Department of Education for funding schools, like Oral Roberts University, which discriminate against LGBTQ students - while his aunt still looks for the cameras so that she can sob over the injustice of people like her nephew having the right to marry the people they love.

It's the twenty-first century, Vicky.  Perhaps it's time to quit worrying about who others marry and what they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms!