On Thursday, Republican Representative Vicky Hartzler of Missouri broke down weeping on the House floor.
This happened as she pleaded with her peers to vote against the Respect for Marriage Act, a bipartisan initiative that aims to safeguard marriages between people of the same sexual orientation.
Through her emotions, Representative Hartzler expressed her sincere hope and prayer that her colleagues would have the moral fortitude to join her in rejecting what she thinks is mistaken and potentially harmful law.
Hartzler says her priority is protecting people who believe in the true meaning of marriage and then starts to cry while she asks for her colleagues to vote against marriage equality pic.twitter.com/yk7loKCd4G
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 8, 2022
The Measure
The opening two minutes of Hartzler’s remarks were devoted to her criticism of the measure.
She asserted its “sole goal is to offer the federal government a legal bludgeoning instrument to force people of faith out of the public arena and silence anybody who dissents.”
The national “Defense of Marriage Act,” which had pre-defined marriage as taking place between a man and a woman, has been repealed thanks to the “Respect for Marriage Act.”
This mandates that states acknowledge any marriage that takes place in another state. In addition, Hartzler referred to the bill as “unnecessary” and stated that “Obergefell is not in danger.”
She was referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, which mandated all states recognize marriages between people of the same gender and issue marriage certificates to same-gender couples.
A Republican Congress member started crying on the House floor out of fear that LGBTQ couples will have the same rights as her. pic.twitter.com/4kZxMI7EKX
— Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) December 8, 2022
As poll after poll shows, the majority of Americans do not care about another bill supporting same-sex/gender identity marriage. Regardless of the narrative Democrats try to push, many people care about issues like inflation.
Dobbs v. Jackson
In the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was heard by the Supreme Court in 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a viewpoint.
In his written viewpoint, he urged the high court to reconsider numerous rulings made by the Supreme Court using the due process stipulation. One of these decisions was the Obergefell ruling.
In the wake of his judgment and the Supreme Court’s decision to roll back the nation’s abortion rights that had been granted in the now-famous Roe v. Wade case, Democrats worked tirelessly to cement safeguards for same-sex marriage in the statute.
It is not the first time that Hartzler has fought against the widening of marriage protections.
As was first noted by the Kansas City Star, before her time in Congress, Hartzler firmly pressed for an act to be incorporated into Missouri’s charter that would identify marriage as being between a man and a woman.
After a disappointing showing in the race for a vacant Senate seat, Representative Hartzler, who has served in Congress continuously since 2011, has decided not to run again in 2023.
The office of Representative Hartzler did not reply to a request for comment from Insider.
