Senate rules dictate that when your bill is on the floor, you're on your feet.

And so as Senate Bill 81 shifted back and forth on Thursday, so did its sponsor, Sen. Bill Hickman.

The St. George Republican was on his feet for the better part of five hours answering questions or listening to opponents.

"I felt like a barber," he said, adding that he was thinking, "Are these people ever going to stop coming?"

Typically, a bill will last maybe five minutes on the floor. Controversial bills will last longer, but rarely, if ever, an entire day.

But the Senate has always prided itself on respect and decorum. Even when Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, uttered his now-infamous words "This baby is black. ... It is a dark, ugly thing," the body recognized it as a "breach of decorum" and handled it in a by-the-book manner.

So as the debate wore on Thursday and Hickman leaned heavily on his desk for support, opponents' questions and comments remained mostly civil, with an occasional voice rising.

For his part, Hickman took the verbal blows in stride.

"You have to understand that other members of this body ... sincerely come with different perspectives and philosophies, and we don't always agree," he said. "It would be easy to get mad at somebody after you have been standing there for two hours."