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

[lucydogz]

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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.

Have people watched the film? It is very beautiful, very respectful and logical. His being gay is relevant because it is tied in with trying to paint a complete picture of him. For example his knowledge that he would not have someone to leave the house to; so decided at an early age to give it the NT. The film also spends as much time on him as a poet and Norfolk man as his being gay.

He was clearly a planner, so the fact that his bequeath included his private writings and a hand annotated copy of the Wolfenden Report suggests he was more comfortable with the approach the NT take than the volunteers would have it known.

I think for the volunteers to not even watch the film and still take this attitude is another example of the deep-rooted homophobia that we see a lot in East Anglia.

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.

Trust mumsnet to have more details on the background than the media headlines, which rather look now like attempts to undermine some party or parties.

I think the line taken with the volunteers is misguided, as was the line taken with the film (although admit I can't stand Stephen Fry so that doesn't help). Tbh I also find people's sexuality of exactly zero interest, so promoting FH in this way makes little sense to me.

We have a strong diversity and inclusion programme where I work. There are often lanyards/ badges available in conjunction with the events we run - Pride, He for She, Be Bold for Change etc. They are made available to all employees and some choose to take and wear them and some don't. Forcing them to wear one won't change their minds- maybe they are sexist/ homophobic, maybe they see it as trite and tokenism etc, maybe they just don't want a pin hole on their lapel. Up to them. Aesop's fable of the sun and the wind springs to mind here.

I do know why the NT need to support this as as) I am not aware that this is their remit or b) anyone lgbt is first and foremost a human being and as such have every right to enjoy a NT property just the same as the rest of us. In this case it seems to me that the trust are 'jumping on a bandwagon' and in doing so are drawing attention to lgbt people as though they are some sort of show.

I stopped supporting them a few years ago. We went to visit a local National Trust property and there was someone buying tickets, two ladies behind the counter so I stood next to the customer, 2nd lady behind the counter ignored us. Another couple came and stood behind the first customer, as he left they were served. I though meh she probably thought other lady was serving us. With both previous customers she gave them the tickets a brochure and came round the counter to point out points of interest. She then started to serve a third couple, I said, "Am I invisible" she ignored me. The couple said, "these people are in front of us." She served with little grace, shoved the tickets across the counter, no brochure, no effort to point anything out.

I don't know why she did it but suspect the colour of my husband's skin was the main factor but I can't prove it but I will never go in their properties again. So yes I am happy if they want to punish bigots.

granny I feel with the NT that their volunteers are both their biggest asset and their biggest liability. It hugely reduces their costs (would not be viable to use paid staff) but it is also much harder to enforce codes of conduct on volunteers than paid employees (sector wide problem, believe me), especially long serving ones, and service and efficiency can be somewhat variable.

What I'm curious about is how the National Trust came to have ownership of his private journals? If the family wanted his personal history to remain private then why do the NT have his private journals?

This thread reminds me why it is still an issue. People saying things like 'Where is my straight and proud badge' is depressing. You get to wear your straight and proud badge everyday by not facing discrimination and prejudice over your sexuality.

The NT is not their employer either because they are volunteers.

This issue of "outing" a dead gay man (who was alive when it was illegal) is a problematic concept. 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.

People don't recognise that heterosexuality is openly referred to in history (who one married and had children with is mentioned without worrying that this implies straight sex occurred).

So if we accept now that being gay is equally benign, why is it outing? The publicity does not refer to sexual acts but rather an aspect of his being (as relevant as his status as magistrate, poet, Lord Lieutenant or Norfolk man). Clearly the fact that he chose to write about that part of his being in his diaries and left them to the NT means that he implicitly consented to this information being revealed as part of the historical record.

Cantseethewoods I can see that but it doesn't change how I feel about them. As a little boy my husband suffered alot of abuse, a brown child with a white mother and no father around, he was killed in WW2. In the 21st century he shouldn't have to put up with being treated like that.

I feel very sorry for the volunteers. Gay rights campaigning and political activism isn't what they signed up to when they volunteered. The rights of all parties should be respected.

*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.*

I agree. The term "bigot" has become synonymous with "not agreeing with the cause du jour" (or, sometimes, even "not agreeing with me"). Plus - what do you call someone who doesn't like the idea of gay sex (wouldn't want to do it themselves, isn't interested in watching or reading about it) but completely respects the rights of others to do as they choose? I wouldn't say that person was homophobic, nor would I say he was a bigot. But why should his employer force him to wear a badge if he doesn't want to?

It's illiberal liberalism at its worst....

Would it be ok to out a dead man who lived in a three-bed semi, if you inherited his diaries after his death?

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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 have huge 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 no sympathy for them.

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"?