Political Quotes

“Mr. President, my thanks to the majority leader this morning. Before I say a few words about Rev. Gregory Knox Jones, I want to go back in time for a couple of minutes. I was talking to the pages out in the hall behind the leader about how when our country was first settled folks came here from all over the world. They came here in part in pursuit of religious freedom. They were people of different faiths. They wanted to be able to worship God as they saw fit. When it got really tough in Philadelphia at the Constitutional Convention--trying to wrestle with issues such as slavery, rights of women, whether there should be little States, big States, how we were going to be represented here--many times the Founding Fathers hit the pause button and they called in a person of faith to pray, to help them to find a way to progress, and they did again and again. When George Washington was inaugurated--not here but in New York City--at the end of the day they did not go off and have big parties; they actually went to church. In the early days of our country, worship services were actually held here, as some of us know. We start every day here in the Senate with a prayer, oftentimes delivered by retired Navy ADM Barry C. Black, our Chaplain, and today with a special guest, my pastor, Gregory Knox Jones from Westminster Presbyterian Church. Our leader Harry Reid has run a number of marathons. As it happens, so has our guest. He is a long-distance runner, literally and figuratively.…”