On the recordFebruary 29, 2012
I thank my friend for yielding and my friends from Pennsylvania and Minnesota for sponsoring this bill. Tonight, we stand united and strong for the release of Pastor Youcef. Although the legal case for his release is overwhelming, as Mr. Pitts has outlined, we do not rely on the law in our plea. Though our political convictions shared among everyone on both sides of the aisle I believe here are deep, our appeal is not based on politics. Instead, our appeal is based on the ineffable human quality of the loving bond between a parent and his children. Whether one worships in a mosque, a temple, a church, a synagogue, or some other forum not known to us, whether one chooses not to worship at all, whether one lives on any of the continents of the world, practices any of the political ideologies of the world, is there not a common bond among those who feel the overwhelming love when they first hold their daughter or their son? Is there not a common bond among those who feel the anxiety of worrying whether a sick child will be healed? Is there not a common bond of the immense pride that a mother or a father feels when their children achieve some hard-fought goal? Is there not a common bond of the empty and hurtful feeling that people know that someday they will have to depart from the children they love so dearly? That day is coming all too soon for Pastor Youcef if those who are mothers and fathers, who are his captors, do not consider that ineffable human bond.…
