National Trust tells volunteers to wear gay pride badge or be sent to the back room

The National Trust has told volunteers they will be banned from meeting members of the public if they refuse to wear a rainbow lanyard throughout their celebration of the legalisation of homosexuality.

Volunteers at Felbrigg Hall, in Norfolk, which was gifted to the Trust by Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, have been asked to wear a badge or lanyard with the rainbow flag and told they will not be able to meet and greet guests if they do not.

Ketton-Cremer gave the hall to the nation by leaving it to the trust when he died, as he had no descendants.

But the trust has been criticised for ‘outing’ him, as it made its benefactor’s sexuality public, something he did not disclose during his lifetime.

Well let’s begin by saying his Relatives including his godchildren have criticised this move, saying he was “intensely private” and should not have been “outed”. I don’t believe they were even consulted about the film prior to its making or releasing.

Luvvie Stephen Fry narrated a film, which was part of the Trust’s Prejudice and Pride campaign marking 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality, and highlighted the previously hidden lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inhabitants of its properties.

Robert was an intensely private man. He was never open about his sexuality, he kept it private, unlike today when it is quite literally worn as a badge and used to score points and as a token or victim card.

Surely, as a ‘volunteer’ it should be a voluntary decision on their part as to whether to wear such a badge? Not everyone wants to get around plastered in Rainbow badges, just like some people do not like wearing other symbols. It is personal choice.

It’s also a form of bullying, wear this badge or we’ll give you tasks to do in a back room away from visitors. Unfair pressure on its volunteers, and is being oppressive and intolerant towards those who don’t believe heritage is about gender or sexual orientation, but about our history.

The LGBT complain bitterly if one of their pack is outed or bullied for what they are but they seem to be praising this move, as it champions and furthers their ostentatious cause.

Many National Trust members (including me) find it distasteful and unnecessarily political. It’s possible that even most of their members feel like this.

The National Trust acknowledged that they had lots of letters against it in their magazine about this idea of theirs, but they weren’t for listening and still can’t see it now.

Gay pride is political. (it seeks to change a person’s thoughts or beliefs) Irrespective of one’s personal feelings towards it NT should not be bullying people to participate in its campaign to attract more gay visitors and members, in this so called ‘celebration’ of fifty years since being gay was decriminalised.

The National Trust are the ones disrespecting their vital volunteers and members. The National Trust looks after grounds and buildings. They do not have the right to research their benefactors’ private lives to suit the needs of a marketing campaign.

The National Trust say volunteers sign up to the organisation’s ‘core ambition’, adding that the Trust was committed to ‘promoting equality of opportunity and inclusion’. And requests and expects individuals to uphold the values of the organisation. Surely values are that they respect his private life?

Our supposedly tolerant society is actually the exact opposite. If you fail to agree with what a group think you are sent into the back room until you do.