To feel sympathy to the National Trust volunteers at Felbrigg Hall?

chips4teaplease we don't all have to think the same way. You can be as homophobic, racist, sexist or disablist as you want but in public you are not allowed to act on those views.

Freedom.
To be forced or even 'expected' to wear a badge supporting a cause, which you would not have chosen to wear, is an infringement of your personal freedom.
If we have no choice but to support a particular cause, are we not living under fascism?
I don't think I should have to support gay rights. I might, or I might not. I might choose to accept whatever equality laws are in place and quietly let people go about their lives, without wanting to promote any particular lifestyle or attitude. But no, we all must think the same way.
There is something very wrong happening. It isn't the hope/aim/working towards equality, it's the insistence on uniformity of thoughts and attitudes.

Justice woman 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

But grannytomine how does not wanting to wear a wee pin badge = treating somebody as less? It might not seem significant to you but to me it reinforces what I experienced which was small minded middle class white people who don't think "others" have a right to be there.

Maybe you have to live it, in my case it is interesting as I can go out as the respectable older white woman, or I can go out as half of a mixed race couple, believe me even now you get treated differently but I will concede it is less than 40 years ago and certainly not as bad as my husband experienced 70 years ago.

I wasn't a great fan of my MIL but she and my late FIL who I never met were bloody brave in 1940s Britain and what they had to put up with was vile. They were even thrown out of a church as they were so unacceptable.

Agree notevilstepmother

I didn't see anyone rushing to the defence of BBC presenters who have to wear the poppy on air every year

I feel sorry for anyone who had to wear bloody reindeer horns at Christmas.

f you think the 6 min film (examining many aspects of his "portrait") and some rainbow merchandise (to tie with 50 years of the Wolfenden Report, of which he had a copy which he wrote on) make it a cause celebrate then we shall agree to differ

Fine! I didn't mention the film though.

As long as the 'uncomfortable' objections are nothing to do with being anti gay, though I really don't have an awful lot of sympathy.
As to the 'outing' of the squire. Apparently those who knew him were already aware, so it's more outing publicly than news to those who knew and were related to him.

Granny - no, I'd agree that what happened to you was illegal and should be stopped because you were discriminated against. They treated you differently. That's wholly different from talking about personal or political views. (To be honest, I would support the right of an organisation to sack someone for airing racist or homophobic views on social media on the grounds that they are incompatible with the views of the organisation they represent. But that is different because it is the employee who has made the choice to do so publicly. I think it is very wrong to force anyone to state a view.)

They are not reducing him to one thing, they are saying that this is part of the full picture of the person and past prejudice meant it was airbrushed out.

YetAnotherSpartacus

If you think the 6 min film (examining many aspects of his "portrait") and some rainbow merchandise (to tie with 50 years of the Wolfenden Report, of which he had a copy which he wrote on) make it a cause celebrate then we shall agree to differ. The NT is, and should be, as much about social history as old buildings so this is relevant (demonstrating the historical change in social attitudes of most people).

My view is a few of the many volunteers at FH are just revealing their ickiness over the concept of gay sex- and clearly are not in line with the NT official policy on equality and diversity

“As a renowned researcher who studied and published biographies of important literary persons in the past with integrity, he would most likely have known that future research on his works, life and times might be studied and published, many of which were included in his bequest to the National Trust.”

varvara good point. I didn't see anyone rushing to the defence of BBC presenters who have to wear the poppy on air every year.

And yes they do have to - ex BBC person here.

I'm in two minds about this

Yes its a good thing, shouldn't be ashamed of etc.

But it seems to me that it is also of a similar vein to "Mrs X a house wife and mother from Leeds" when the mother from Leeds is a top surgeon.
People are more than their sexuality etc, by all means mention it but don't make the person or building) just about it.

But grannytomine how does not wanting to wear a wee pin badge = treating somebody as less?

If they had refused to serve a gay couple and treated them the way they treated your husband THAT really would be treating someone as less. But someone not wanting to wear a badge promoting a particular cause can't be compared to how your husband was treated.

If someone refused to wear a poppy would they be treating ex-forces members as "less"?

I have no sympathy for them.

NataliaOsipova in our case I believe the discrimination we were subjected to was illegal so I think it can be imposed even if the little coven behind the counter object to black people or mixed race couples or whatever.

I think the women who served us were younger than my husband so no ageism here.

I have huge sympathy for them.

Cannotwillnot no one has a right to treat other people as less than them because they are gay, black, disabled, a woman. If the volunteers can't buy into that they shouldn't be allowed to be volunteers.

I agree with this 100%. But wearing a badge has nothing to do with it. And you have the right to impose standards of behaviour on your volunteers/employees - but you never have the right to impose political views (or private views of any sort, come to think about it) on them.

I don't give a stuff if the gentleman in question was shy about it

Wow! What an unpleasant, intolerant and bigoted attitude- you are aware that 'the gays' (used ironically!) don't belong to you aren't you!

Just because your son is gay does not give you insight into, or indeed ownership, of anybody else that is gay!

If she condemns the film without watching it then she isn't keeping an open mind.

If researchers interviewed people who said he was out then they are not outing him.

If he was a private person who deliberately left his stuff to the NT then he would be aware that they would read it. He chose to let them have the full story. He could have chosen to hide those aspects, he didn't. A private person ashamed of being gay wouldn't have written evidence or would have burnt it instead of leaving for posterity.

To keep this aspect of history secret now (for fear of upsetting some distant relatives or neighbours) indicates a view that being gay is bad

But I'm not sure it is about keeping it secret so much as not making him a cause celebre for it or reducing him and his life to it or making it the Big Ticket Item at his home.

All the people on this thread saying a version of "I'm not homophobic but..." need to take a good long walk through a room full of mirrors.

Literally sticking their colours to the mast. We live in a world where people want brands to stand for something so well done for them.

I am joining the NT because of this!

Loving the casual ageism on this thread. Older people = not supportive of LGBT. Umm ok .

I don't know what I think about the badges. Can't see why people wouldn't want to wear them but can imagine a senerio where someone telling me I HAD to wear one would piss me off. I suspect this has more to do with friction between 'officious' managers/marketers and pissed off volunteers rather than the the badges themselves.

Well they've managed to get a lot of free publicity.