National Trust volunteers banished to back room chores if they refuse to wear gay pride rainbow flag

Aug 4, 2017 by Jill

by Steve Bird, Telegraph:

For nearly 40 years, the vibrant rainbow flag of the gay pride movement has come to represent diversity and tolerance. However, a decision by the National Trust to demand 350 of its volunteers at a Jacobean mansion wear the banner or be banished to backroom chores has triggering an angry backlash.

Bosses at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk wrote to their army of volunteers asking them to all wear a lanyard or badge displaying the rainbow flag to welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer visitors. The email, seen by The Telegraph, reveals that those who refused would not be allowed to meet and greet guests to the 17th Century hall.

The move was part of the Trust’s Prejudice and Pride campaign marking 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality. But it was mired in controversy when the Trust “outed” Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, the late owner of the hall, last month in a short film narrated by Stephen Fry.

Relatives and godchildren of the country squire wrote to the Telegraph complaining that the “intensely private” historian and poet who died in 1969 should not have been “outed”.

Read here