Rep. Vicki Hartzler (R-MO) wept during a House floor speech as she pleaded with colleagues to stop the Respect for Marriage Act, with Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu (CA) referring to her emotional outburst as “tears of hate.”

Lieu posted the searing response on Twitter following Hartzler’s speech on Thursday.

“Want to see tears of hate?” he tweeted. “Watch the speech below. This MAGA Republican is so hateful of other human beings experiencing the joys of marriage and love that she shed tears of hate.”

Want to see tears of hate?

Watch the speech below. This MAGA Republican is so hateful of other human beings experiencing the joys of marriage and love that she shed tears of hate. https://t.co/XYubxawOFE

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 8, 2022

Hartzler’s words provided strong support for traditional marriage, urging House members to oppose the legislation to codify same-sex marriage.

“I’ll tell you my priority. Protect religious liberty, protect people of faith, and protect Americans who believe in the true meaning of marriage. I hope and pray that my colleagues will find the courage to join me in opposing this misguided and this dangerous bill,” she said.

The short video quickly turned viral, with more than 1.4 million views less than an hour after its posting.

The House of Representatives passed the legislation on Thursday, 258-169, sending the bill to the president’s desk where it is expected to be signed into law.

The measure was supported primarily by Democrats, but 39 House Republicans joined in the measure. The bill repeals the Defense of Marriage Act that legally defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman and permitted individual states not to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.

In addition to Lieu’s demeaning response to Hartzler, he posted his disdain for the majority of Republicans who opposed the Respect for Marriage Act.

“The majority of House Republicans are on the wrong side of history,” he tweeted.

The majority of House Republicans are on the wrong side of history. #thursdaymorning truth https://t.co/Q6QegSW1UC

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 8, 2022

The Senate previously passed the legislation — which also codifies federal protections for interracial marriages. The 61-36 vote last week included 12 Republican Senators supporting the measure, offering the supermajority needed to pass the 60-vote filibuster threshold.

The Senate Republicans who backed the bill were Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mitt Romney of Utah, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Todd Young of Indiana.

Prior to the Senate vote, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) unsuccessfully attempted to urge fellow Republicans to include protections for anyone with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage belongs to one man and one woman.

“Instead of subjecting churches, religious nonprofits, and persons of conscience to undue scrutiny or punishment by the federal government because of their views on marriage, we should make explicitly clear that this legislation does not constitute a national policy endorsing a particular view of marriage that threatens the tax-exempt status of faith-based nonprofits,” he wrote. “As we move forward, let us be sure to keep churches, religious charities, and religious universities out of litigation in the first instance,” he said in a letter concerning his proposed Lee Amendment.

SpaceX is preparing to launch Japan’s first privately-led mission to the moon.

The ispace HAKUTO-R Mission 1 is set to blast off on Sunday at 2:38 a.m. ET from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the same day that NASA’s Orion capsule is expected to return from its Artemis 1 moon mission.

The Falcon 9 used in the launch is the world’s first orbital-class reusable rocket. It generates more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust at sea level. Sunday’s planned launch would be the fourth flight for the powerful rocket.

Following liftoff, the Mission 1 lander will make its four-month journey ahead of Japan’s first unmanned lunar landing. Only the U.S., the former Soviet Union, and China have successfully conducted a soft landing on the moon’s surface.

The mission is expected to land on the moon’s surface near the end of April 2023.

The Japanese space company ispace, established in 2010, seeks to “lay the groundwork for unleashing the moon’s potential and transforming it into a robust and vibrant economic system,” according to its founder.

“We look forward to contributing to NASA’s Artemis program as a commercial lunar transportation service and pioneering the development of future industries and connecting the Earth to the Moon and beyond,” said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace.

The United Arab Emirates will also be part of the mission. The moon rover aboard the lander is a 22-pound robot named Rashid, the Middle East’s first such rover to reach the moon.

A new mission control located at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai will monitor the Rashid rover during its operations on the lunar surface. Rashid is expected to investigate an unexplored moon region for about two weeks while gathering data on soil, dust, and electrically charged particles, including taking thousands of images.

The Rashid Space Centre’s objective is to become the first Arab nation to reach another planet, setting its sights on a manned Mars landing by 2117. Hope probe reached the martian surface in 2021, making UAE the first Middle Eastern nation to do so.

The Falcon 9 will also transport a tiny NASA cubesat called Lunar Flashlight. The device will hunt for icy water inside craters near the moon’s south pole.

“We are bringing a literal flashlight to the moon — shining lasers into these dark craters to look for definitive signs of water ice covering the upper layer of lunar regolith,” Barbara Cohen, Lunar Flashlight principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement.

“I’m excited to see our mission contribute to our scientific understanding of where water ice is on the moon and how it got to be there,” Cohen added.

The SpaceX launch was initially scheduled for November 30. The mission has experienced multiple setbacks related to updates to Falcon 9.

After further inspections of the launch vehicle and data review, we're standing down from tomorrow's launch of @ispace_inc's HAKUTO-R Mission 1; a new target launch date will be shared once confirmed

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 1, 2022

The live stream of the launch will be available at SpaceX.com, with coverage starting 15 minutes before liftoff.

Monday, December 12 at 2:31 a.m. ET is the scheduled backup date in the case of a delay.

The launch is not the only moon mission in recent months. NASA’s Artemis 1 mission conducted a near-moon operation to test ahead of its next planned human landing on the lunar surface scheduled for 2024 or 2025.

Several additional countries have announced new or expanded plans for major space projects. Last month, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said that his government would establish a space agency similar to NASA by the end of the year. Plans include a robotic moon landing in 2032 and on Mars in 2045.

Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Sunday after six months aboard China’s new Tiangong station. The nation began work on its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station over concerns about connections between China’s space agency and the People’s Liberation Army.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, another long-term goal of the Tiangong Space Station is to serve as the refueling station for an upcoming Hubble-like telescope that China hopes to launch in 2024. China plans to put its first astronauts on the moon and send a Mars sample return rover to the red planet by 2030.

India’s space agency also has a program in development to launch a space station into orbit by 2030. It will be designed to hold a small crew for up to 20 days at a time and be entirely led by Indian astronauts, according to the Diplomat.

The European Space Agency includes 22 member nations and has often partnered with many of NASA’s missions in recent years, including its Artemis program.