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

[lucydogz]

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-norfolk-40825660&ved=0ahUKEwjXzYeYwb_VAhUDB8AKHfOABAsQiJQBCJcCMCU&usg=AFQjCNESdvsFPzoWQVu_7i8WHq_3mutfKA&ampcf=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">link
I'm pro-inclusion of minority groups, but think the NT should stick to doing it's job - looking after old houses. As most of its volunteers are retired, who might not want to be representatives of whatever right-on case the Trust decide to espouse,it's also short sighted of them to treat volunteers this way.

Surely if the NT want to promote gay rights, it would be far more useful for them to have a few boards up at the property, talking about finding the hidden diaries and explaining attitudes in the recent past towards homosexuality.

Many younger people probably don't appreciate that until fairly recently it was a criminal act, so it's probably worth explaining it and may indeed be thought provoking for all visitors and perhaps volunteers as well.

Nobody has said that the non-badge wearing volunteers wouldn't be welcoming to LGBT visitors. Daft thing to say.

They might be welcoming, or they might not be.
Some people here are talking about gay rights as a cause. When it is about simple equality.

But that's got nothing to do with cheap tatty badges and lanyards. The NT realised you shouldn't force people to wear them.

I don't wear a rainbow anything but my gay friends still hang out with me.

That is really dangerous thinking. It's not only a badge at all. And deciding peoples thoughts because they won't go along with what someone else has decided they have to support is seriously bad.

As I said, that's only one element of my thoughts on the matter, which are contradictory. And as I also said, I was wondering about people's motives, not reaching any conclusions, but I shall continue to wonder about the reasons people might have for wearing or not wearing a badge to commemorate diversity and what (if anything) that tells us about the national mood..

Do you think that their motives are any of your business? As long as they keep them to themselves?

Any event that makes the national news and that may (perhaps, arguably) be a measure of the times in which we live is my business. When it concerns an organisation I've been a member of for decades, especially so. It's not about individual volunteers.

Some people here are talking about gay rights as a cause. When it is about simple equality

It isn't though. The T part of LGBT is very loaded and is not a simple matter of equality. There are many people troubled by the inclusion of transactivism under the rainbow and who do not want to be associated with that aspect of the umbrella.
Many of them are gay, many of them are fully for gay equality. But lets not pretend its just a pretty rainbow with little meaning....

I'm a NT volunteer at a property that was once owned by a famous bisexual couple. Gay and bisexual visitors from all over the world flock here, and I love talking to them. One of my very best friends is gay and we often meet up here. I really love showing him and his husband round.

Of all of the properties in the NT portfolio it's ours that should probably have been the one to insist on rainbow badges. It didn't though, and I am very grateful to our general manager for that.

I've been musing about what I would do if I was asked to wear a rainbow badge and lanyard at my own NT property. I would probably agree, but I would be dead grumpy about it. I would feel exactly the same if they insisted that I should wear a badge supporting the local hospice, or the donkey sanctuary that I support.

That sounds an interesting property, Tamzin! I'm kind of bored with places that just allude to what a sex pest Whistler was, or have one of the many, many Beds that Cromwell slept in (seriously, the man never troubled his own pillows).

you're not the only poster on the thread.

I'm the only one you were replying to in that post :)

'Some people here are talking about gay rights as a cause. When it is about simple equality.'

Again, same could be said about feminism, that's about equality. However I doubt many in the LGBT community would go along with being told they had to wear badges at work to support feminism.

is it Sissinghurst Tamzin?

It's not about individual volunteers. I rather think it is. The NT would have to close it's houses to the public without them. Something I think they forget when they decided to treat them this way.
Perhaps if they were all younger they'd think wearing lanyards and badges was great. Unfortunately for them, most of them are older and don't like being bossed around by overpaid bien-pensants.

Yes it is Sissinghurst. Probably outing myself here but I don't care.

I imagine it is very busy, Tamzin. Maybe the NT were trying to drive footfall to Felbrigg by highlighting this aspect of its history.

It's a sad indictment of today's society when reluctance to wear a pin badge has you labelled as 'bigot'. Individual Free speech and free thought be damned. - you must follow like a sheep without any comment or question

Agree totally. Can't people see how dangerous it is to create a world where only a single viewpoint is tolerated? It may seem fine when the single viewpoint coincides with your own beliefs, but what happens when the tide turns and it's your ideas that are condemned as bigotry? There seems to be a naive idea that there is a one way track to progressive, correct thought and that, as long as we shove everyone down it, all will be well. Freedom of thought, actions and speech are the true protectors of our liberty, not shouting 'Bigot" at an elderly NT volunteer.

I suspect that some NT volunteers are homophobic. I suspect some are racist. I suspect some are sexist. I don't condone those views, but nor do I condone them having to feign support for a campaign with which they disagree, when they could never have reasonably expected this to be part of the role when they signed up. And I think exactly the same about the forced wearing of poppies, despite having been a fundraiser for the Royal British Legion for 15 years.

No Saucery. Each property makes its own decisions. There is no big high up NT Person deciding what we should all do. We each have a general manager, sometimes in charge of several close properties. This decision would have been made locally. We would never want to discourage footfall at Sissinghurst, particularly as most of the money taken is ploughed straight back into our property.

I'm the only one you were replying to in that post smile

You weren't.

Thanks, Tamzin, that's interesting to know.

The national trust and this particular property are of course free to make the decision they wish volunteers to wear this badge , however volunteers are equally free to regent this if they have either different views or do not wish to as they do not wand to promote this or indeed any other cause. This does not make the volunteers bigots, people are entitled to their views, we live in a free country, the use of the word biggot is inappropriate.

Freedom of thought, actions and speech are the true protectors of our liberty, not shouting 'Bigot" at an elderly NT volunteer.

Wholly agree.

Plus - and I'm genuinely interested - can someone explain why they think that NT properties "celebrate heterosexuality"? I've thought hard about this this afternoon and I can't think of an example I've seen. A lot of the properties will document the history of the families who have lived there (which obviously required sex between a man and a woman for the purposes of procreation) and I've sometimes seen wedding dresses or love letters, but I've always thought they were presented as historical artefacts (this is what x wore in 1786; here is a letter from X to Y in 1788 - all very matter of fact). If anything, I'd say they show things pretty "unromantically" - one NT volunteer was valiantly explaining to my DD how the housekeeper wouldn't automatically put a married couple in the same room together unless she was sure that that would have been "acceptable" to them (i.e. If she was sure they actually slept together) and how many married couples had interconnecting doors with a lock on the lady's side. So, arguably, they show historical marriages in a pretty honest light, rather than celebrating their heterosexual basis.

Equally, I took my daughters to the Moomins exhibition on the South Bank. They like the Moomins. There were many snippets about the author, whom I hadn't known beforehand was gay. This wasn't explicitly stated anywhere, but they had a photo of her with her partner (female) and their house and some letters on display in which she referred to her partner. I wouldn't have said that that exhibition "celebrated homosexuality" either. I would have said it was an exhibition about the Moomins.

LRD I don't think they are flattening out gay history unless this is the only site they ever mention gay issues at. If they were doing it at this site in order to ignore elsewhere, that would be ridiculously tokenistic. But if this is one opportunity that they've actually taken, and one of the next times there's an opportunity they take that one too, then isn't that how the NT show the rich history that we have - by using the individual stories available at their many properties? This house isn't an LGBT museum, they're showcasing the human stories in one property and focusing on an aspect that isn't commonly highlighted. We get the rich tapestry when they do it again and again at other properties. Which they hopefully will. Just as we get the rich tapestry of heterosexual lives by the many and varied ways they talk about marriage etc. through out history, class and place at many different properties).

That wasn't quite what I meant.

This is someone who, according to accounts of people who knew him, may never have understood himself as 'gay' or 'homosexual'. Maybe he had sex with men. Maybe he was attracted to men. But it seems pretty clear his public persona didn't include those details. It seems to me that, in presuming it's ok to label him as 'gay,' the NT is assuming all gay people must be the same. Certainly, Stephen Fry's defence of the NT's position and the video he voiced for them, presumes all gay people are basically the same. And they're just not. There are plenty of people living today who wouldn't want their sexuality discussed in public. It doesn't necessarily mean they're ashamed or repressed - they might just be quite private. Or they might be aware their sexuality is a bit more complex than some of the labels that might be applied to it.

I agree there's a place for celebrating all sorts of different stories about sexuality across history, but presuming 'sexuality' means 'homosexual or heterosexual' is reductive and anachronistic.

Stephen Fry's defence of the NT's position and the video he voiced for them, presumes all gay people are basically the same. And they're just not. There are plenty of people living today who wouldn't want their sexuality discussed in public. It doesn't necessarily mean they're ashamed or repressed - they might just be quite private

Well said. There are also large numbers of men who have sex with men who don't identify as gay.

I don't agree that him leaving his diaries to the NT was implied consent to having them revealed to the public. He died before homosexuality was even legal, so it's pretty unlikely that he expected that our culture would become so open so quickly. He might be delighted, he might be horrified. While there are still people alive who knew him well, I think the NT should respect their views.

LRD,

The way I see it is that the NT is entitled to (and should) present the man's life according to the evidence in his diaries and other personal effects received by them, together with the context of the time. rookiemere's example further up this page would be within this meaning. In otherwords, objective, historical and detached. I don't think it would be right for the family's (or volunteers') objections to prevent such an approach: after all, the evidence was handed over to the NT. I would go further and say that it's the NT's responsiblity to tell the stories of people such as him as they are part of history, if properly evidenced.

Where I would draw the line is using those materials to turn him into some sort of icon or using it to further a campaign.

Is that more or less your view too?