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.

Always makes me smile, this one.

The thing is though, wearing a rainbow badge and lanyard indicates your support of LGBTQI rights if people are being forced to wear it then it's false isn't it? They don't support LGBTQI rights so I wouldn't be comfortable with them pretending that they did to avoid trouble.

This, a million times.

Who needs grudging support from reluctant volunteers under a 3 line whip?

I am still waiting for the NT to have a disabled day. We were regular visitors until my DP became disabled.
We had not realised how little disabled access these places had until then.
So I would hardly consider the NT to be inclusive, providing your not a disabled LGBT you still get better access to places of interest than the disabled !

*There is a difference between a man leaving his diaries , which would have revealed his sexual orientation albeit an open secret within his close circle , and the recipient of those diaries using them as a tool to market his home to visitors.

The donor could have reasonably expected the first but not the second.The fact Is that he was a very interesting and accomplished man who happened to be gay , not that he was a gay person full stop*

Well said, Yellow Primula!

Forcing someone to wear a Pride symbol completely negates the point. It isn't showing support unless it is voluntary. Not wearing a Pride symbol isn't necessarily homophobic or bigoted. As long as the NT volunteer treats me appropriately I don't care. Actions count not enforced symbols.

The vast majority of gay people in the past kept their sexuality hidden. They were not private,just trying not to get sent to prison or persecuted.

The volunteers are in the wrong here. Bigotry is never okay.

Maybe if their actions were appropriate then no one would need to enforce anything?

Simon50, I agree about disabled access, my husband is also disabled so it is possible that the attitude we experienced was due to that or a combination of the two.

It is a marketing tool. Would volunteers refuse to wear other marketing tools they disagreed with?
So much homophobia still.

YellowPrimula

The fact that such a respectable, talented, decent man could only have that aspect of his personality revealed after his death is hugely historically important. The Wolfenden Report and decriminalisation meant that it became incidental whilst prior to that, being exposed (like Alan Turing or Oscar Wilde) it could mean ruin and all other aspects of one life ignored.

From the film it is very unclear that the NT are saying fH is now a "gay hall", but actually it is good that their example of someone who is gay is a man who is very much multidimensional/very respectable because it shows that being gay is not just about sex - it can also be about decisions about legacy, social circle, etc. The fact that he was a magistrate and possibly trying people for gay sex (and the internal conflict that might arise) may be quite an interesting line of study

Is used to volunteer at the NT in one of our local houses. The dedicated volunteers were absolutely passionate about the house and the owner (who was quite the eccentric) and many spent their own time researching objects and the history of the place.
So I can kind of see why the volunteers are annoyed about this. If the owner went to such lengths to conceal their sexuality while alive and still has living family then it really isn't for the NT to out them and then use their story for marketing purposes.
The volunteers would also be in the position of sharing the story many times a day in response to visitor questions and might not be happy sharing private details constantly.

Each house has it's own story and most owners are pretty careful when they sign over their properties about how they want the house and particular details shared and treated. I'm also not sure that this man is such a great icon for gay rights, considering how private he was about his relationships, that he needs to be promoted in this way. There are certainly plenty of other historical figures who offer a much more passionate or positive message on gay rights.

Sounds like the volunteers either know little about the man they say they are trying to protect or are in denial about who he really was. Some of the things the man wrote about suggest if the times were different when he was alive he would have been able to be his true self outwardly.

Grannytomine. I would lean more to it being a 'black thing'. For a short while I dated a girl from Barbados and I would have never have believed the way people behaved towards us up until then, and that was by both black and whites.

Brasty

Exactly. Those volunteers need to do a bit of honest self-evaluation IMO.

I am torn about this. As a long standing NT member I think this is exactly the sort of research the Trust should be doing - not to the exclusion of everything else of course, but after decades of emphasis on architecture and decorative arts I don't think a project like this is going to destroy its art historical scholarship in one fell swoop.
Let's also be honest here, the NT has plenty of volunteers who have issues with modern inclusive values - the previous poster describing a racist encounter doesn't surprise me at all. And we don't know, of that ten who wouldn't play ball, how many were genuinely protesting because of concern for the subject's privacy and how many are actually feeling phobic about wearing a gay symbol.
That said, the Trust's attitude here (along with the posters above saying it can't be anything but bigotry) is leaving a very bad taste. A few people not wearing the badge wouldn't detract from the event. I am going to be in Norfolk with my family soon and this makes me want to cross it off my list - partly because it suggests the pride angle will be a bit full on when right now I just want to visit a nice 17th century house with lovely gardens with my kids (other people will be interested in the sex life of the former owner and that's fine), and partly because I think the ethics of treating your volunteers this way are questionable, giving that they might have been objecting for a good reason.
As someone said above, it's illiberal liberalism. Research what you want, wear your own badges, but don't make other people wear them too if they feel it's wrong.

How do you know that apparent attempts at concealment were freely chosen and not learned self preservation (given he lived primarily at a time when being openly gay was so dangerous and there is social ostracism still in parts of East Anglia)?

Jersticewoman, I completely get that and in fact I have some professional interest in the historical research, howeverI think you are naive to think that the NT have done this for historical or even educational reasons. They have seen it purely as a campaign that they can use to boost visitor numbers. They are cynically using this man's, and several others, sexuality to boost their coffers and I admit that I feel uncomfortable with that.

Countess

Agree with most of that esp about their motives, but just a small point of clarification; the dissenters were not fired they were temporarily redeployed, so the NT did technically allow them to choose not wear the badge.

Countess
I have plenty of gay friends who like a nice old house and tea shop.. but are understandably wary of the reaction of some of the volunteers - so having rainbow lanyards is a welcoming gesture.

Also one of my oldest friends (bit of a cliche) is an NT Australia volunteer tour guide in an old house. He is gay and volunteered because the charity made an effect to live their equality policy and overtly welcome gay visitors.

I don't think I said they were fired, did I?
Saying they have to be redeployed to backroom jobs so they won't come into contact with the public is punishing them. If I was a volunteer who loved, and was good at, engaging with visitors, I am not sure I would be happy about that. (And if the problem is that the volunteers are likely to spout homophobia to visitors then that would be a problem at all times, not just for the duration of the event.)

I think yabu, it is an excuse for bigotry and quite telling how upset the volunteers are by a stripy badge.

The man concerned died in 1967 which meant that for his whole life homosexuality was illegal, this probably lead to both shame and fear of being prosecuted. If he had been alive today it is highly likely that he would have just lived his life happily, rather than having to hide who he was. There is an important historical lesson here - how recently what is now accepted as in the range of normal was in relatively recent history something that could land you in jail.

Thankfully this has changed, but this case is also evidence that it hasn't gone far enough I think.

Justicewoman - I agree re the lanyards being a nice gesture. But do you think 100% of front of house staff have to wear them to have that effect? I don't see that a few people wearing normal ones would matter as long as everyone is behaving professionally.

Countess no you didn't but you did say you didn't think they should be forced to wear the badge. They weren't. Just a small clarification.

Carry on - I'm agreeing with you!

Londonista.

Countess
Yes agree with that... I think the marketing department should have checked out how the items would be received and made it voluntary. I suspect that ensuring the volunteers stick to an agreed script about why the others are wearing it might have been more problematic.

Those that think the story of a gay man having to hide his sexuality because of society, is just about his sex life, are way off the mark.

NT tours always talk about partners, spouses of the owner of the house, including known affairs. Should they stop doing this because it is about their "sex life". Or just maybe relationships are about more than sex?