 Today, a United States congresswoman, my Aunt Vicki, started crying because gay people like me can get married. I hope and pray that my colleagues will find the courage to join me in opposing this misguided and this dangerous bill. I yield back. So, despite coming out to my aunt this past February, I guess she's still just as much as a homophobe. Let's be clear, Obergefell is not in danger, but people and institutions of faith are. Aunt Vicki, 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. The bill's implications submit to our ideology or be silenced. It's more like you want the power to force your religious beliefs on to 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. You just listened to Andrew Hartzler, the nephew of homophobic Republican lawmaker Vicki Hartzler, who, as you all remember, cried on the house floor last week while urging her colleagues to reject a same-sex marriage bill. And everything that Andrew said to rebut his homophobic auntie's point was spot-on. Now, it took a lot of courage for him to make that tick-tock because this is not some distant relative who he never sees. He explains that he was very close with his auntie, and you can tell that even though he came out to her, she's still deeply, deeply hateful. And unfortunately for Andrew, a lot of his other family members, including his parents, shares the same homophobic views. So he explained in an as-told essay published in Insider why he chose to finally call her out. And it's because, really, he's been put through hell. So the article is titled, I Called Out My Aunt Representative Vicki Hartzler after she made a homophobic speech in tears. Since surviving conversion therapy, I want people to know they don't have to accept the hateful rhetoric of those in power. And he explains, from a young age, I've heard, read, and seen what my aunt, GOP representative Vicki Hartzler, has done to target my community, but I always felt like there was a boundary I should respect. I had grown up very close to my aunt, and after all, she was family. During my second year of college, however, my perspective changed when I came across a HuffPost article that revealed my aunt hosted a conversion therapy group at the US Capitol in 2019. When I looked at a photo from the event, I was surprised. A conversion therapist that I used to see in high school after I came out to my parents was there. This is a person I would attribute a lot of my trauma to. I then realized that I couldn't ignore or justify the real-world consequences of her actions. When I saw the video on Thursday of my aunt crying on the house floor, as she encouraged colleagues to vote against the Respect for Marriage Act, which will help protect same-sex marriage in the name of religious freedom, I was frightened. I decided to pick up my phone and respond. And that's when he made the TikTok that we just watched. Now, there's another TikTok that he made that I think is great, that we're going to play at the end of this video. But he explains more of his story, and it's genuinely so heartbreaking. So not only did he go to conversion therapy at a very young age after coming out to his parents, but he was then forced to suppress his true self. And he had to come out a second time to his parents. He was sent away to a religious college where he was subjected to even more abuse. So it's like gut punch after gut punch after gut punch. And I have homophobic family members, but none of them are as powerful as Vicki Hartzler, thankfully. So to see him come out at the end of this in a much more positive position is really encouraging. And this story has a happy ending because he is taking action to take on the people who abused him. So he continues here, When it was time to pick a university to attend in 2017, my parents, in an attempt to protect me in a safe little bubble of Christian-abiding people, sent me to Oral Roberts University. At this religious institution named after the famed televangelist, being gay was against the honor code. At the beginning of college, I decided that because I was in this all Christian environment, I would give it one last chance to change and be straight and get my parents to accept me. That attempt lasted a semester. As a sophomore in college, I came out to my parents for the second time, which they initially took really hard. They've come a long way since then. They may get there one day or never be there, but I can't live my life hoping they will. I continued to navigate my religious university as a gay person. And it was very harmful to be in an environment where I felt like I had to conform to the university standards. When I was a junior in high school, I was called into the dean's office for homosexual activity. After it was discovered, I had a boyfriend who attended a different school. I was subjected to conversion therapy type accountability meetings, as they called it, as a result. These meetings consisted of lectures about holy sex and what constituted a godly relationship. So let's just try to put this into context here. He comes out of the closet, is subjected to conversion therapy, which is abused by his parents. Then he comes out a second time. And because he's at this college, once again, subjected to more abuse in the form of accountability meetings, which is conversion therapy light seemingly based on how he describes it. I mean, look, if I were him, I would absolutely disown my parents. I would never speak to them again, but it seems like he's a less bitter person than I am. But that's just his parents should be begging him for forgiveness after all that they put him through. And he says that they've come a long way, but they're still not where they should be. So I mean, it's astonishing to me that they're so hateful. They subjected their own child to torture and abuse. And they still won't fully embrace him as if he's the one with the problem and not them. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. But the good news is that Andrew is done with the bullshit. And not only is he calling out his aunts on TikTok and exposing her, but he's part of a class action lawsuit to take on these universities that's taxpayer funded by the way that openly discriminate against students on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Now the class action lawsuit that he's a part of was spearheaded by the religious exemption accountability project. So this is him fighting back after the school abused him. And yes, that's what they did. Abusive. They were trying to convince him that who he was was unholy, was was bad, was disgusting. And that's not okay. I'm sorry. But if you're going to take taxpayer money, you shouldn't be allowed to discriminate. I mean, let's be clear. You shouldn't be allowed to discriminate period. You should be shut down entirely if you discriminate, but to take taxpayer dollars and do things like that, not acceptable at all. So I'm glad that he's part of this litigation. But let's get to the last TikTok that we're going to play from him, where he further exposed us as auntie. He's ready for a little history lesson. So the year is 2003, and Massachusetts has just become the first state to allow same sex marriage. So what does my aunt Vicky do? She championed an amendment to the Missouri Constitution, which specifically banned same sex marriage. How do you think that makes people, young people like me who are dead feel about themselves? That was Alex, who confronted my aunt after a town hall meeting in June of 2011. Now listen to my aunt Vicky's response. When this video was posted to YouTube when I was just barely 13, it literally changed everything for me. Because for the first time, someone had stood up to my hand. And ultimately, that's why I did what I did. So thank you, Alex. Good on you, brother. Look, self-love is a very powerful thing. And you can tell that he feels confident and he is now comfortable in his own skin, which is very hard to accomplish after it's been just drilled into your head that you should hate yourself. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. It's so hard to overcome that. A lot of people don't overcome that. But Andrew did, and he should really be proud of himself because what he has managed to accomplish, where he's at right now, getting there is no small feat. And again, I speak from experience with homophobic family members as well. I too have a homophobic aunt that I had to disown, but not one who's powerful like that. So Andrew has been through hell and he's doing really good, and he's fighting to make the world a better place. So I think that he should be proud of himself and I commend people like him because people like him are making the world a better place. They're trying to fight for a better future for LGBTQ plus people, so they don't be subjected to the same abuse that our generation was subjected to. So keep on fighting, Andrew, and we're right there with you.