mr. speaker , i have served as the senior pastor of st . 
james united methodist church for 30 years , for 30 years . 
and over those 30 years , i have had countless men and women who have come to me in situations of decisions that had to be made regarding family members ; and in the privacy of a home or in a waiting room , we have dealt with those decisions . 
tonight , i want to talk about the shame of this debate . 
the shame of this debate is that in spite of the fact that we are a great legislative body , we are a body that determines peace and war , but we are not a hallowed body . 
and the fact that we are engaged in this debate is proof positive of the fact that we are a fractured body . 
and what we need to also understand is that we live in a world of echoes , a world of echoes . 
and a thoughtless word falling from the lips of members here can travel around this country and do even more damage to the divisions that we have in this nation . 
we are doing that . 
we have even used the inflammatory word `` kill. '' we were doing damage to this country , and it is shameful that we would do this . 
