Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-01-Speech-3-107"
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"en.20090401.14.3-107"2
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"Mr President, it has been an interesting debate and it would be funny if it was not so tragic. Most of the opposition I have heard this afternoon is, I think, sincerely felt and believed, but it is not based on the facts and it is not based on the text before us. Nothing in this report undermines subsidiarity or proportionality. Indeed, if it did, it would be corrected by the Council of Ministers. So I urge you, even now, to vote in favour and allow the Council of Ministers to do the right thing to make sure that it is absolutely proportionate and subsidiarity is respected.
Mr Weber, Europe was born out of the values of the Second World War – a determination that we would never look away again whilst one group of individuals or other groups were targeted or made a scapegoat and led away to concentration camps and work camps. A determination that there would be no hierarchy of oppression. Yet, sadly, you want to have a Europe that is not based on those decent values, a Europe that believes and respects that all human beings are born equal. Those opposed to this have to answer to their conscience, to their religion and to their voters as to why you believe some people should be treated differently from others, that they should not have equality.
I stand here fortunate, as a gay man – and if I chose to be gay, is it not interesting that one obviously therefore chooses to be heterosexual? – fighting for equality, not just for gay men and lesbians and bisexuals and transgender people, but for people on the basis of their age, their religion, their belief, their gender, anything that is perceived to be different that could be used to take equality away from them. I believe the litmus test of any civilised society is not how we treat a majority, which, interestingly, is made up of so many different minorities. The litmus test of any civilised society, as people listening in the visitors’ gallery will tell you, is not how we treat the majority, but how we treat the minorities, and, in that instance, some Member States are sadly lacking.
Shakespeare said, rather brilliantly, ‘the evil that men do lives on, the good is oft interred with their bones’. Look to yourself, imagine if it were you who was different – who had a different religion, a different belief, a different age, a different sexual orientation – would it be right that you should have your human rights taken away from you? The answer has to be ‘no’. Now is the opportunity for the House to do that which is right and just and good."@en1
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