mr president i voted against this report for the fundamental reason that i believe these subjects have nothing at all to do with the european union
i do not believe there is any need for european legislation in these matters
i think very sensitive traditional matters such as this are much better handled at member state level where individual national parliaments can take account of the fundamental culture traditions and legal systems that are in their own particular countries
a number of other members have raised issues about the particular problems that will be caused by this the problems for religious groups being forced to employ somebody from a different religious base the problem in faith schools and the problem of different political parties wanting to employ people of their own beliefs and values
essentially the fundamental problem with this is that it takes power away from us as elected politicians or national politicians and puts it in the hands of unelected judges to interpret and re-interpret the legislation in ways that were never envisaged at all by the very well-meaning sentiments of some of the authors of this report
but i believe that fundamentally we are opening a huge can of worms
