Forcing us to obey the liberal agenda will only backfire
The last two men in Britain to be executed for the crime of sodomy were James Pratt and John Smith, hanged in London in 1835. Yet homosexuality continued – reprehensibly – to be illegal in Britain until 1967, causing many tragedies along the way, from the torturous conviction of Oscar Wilde in 1895 to the apparent suicide of the genius mathematician Alan Turing in 1954.
Much has been done to remedy this appalling history, from the legalisation of gay marriage to support for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) activist community. Gay pride, a bacchanalian yearly festival celebrating sexual diversity, has become a major feature of the national calendar. At the pride celebrations this weekend in Brighton, the carnival for the first time commenced with a military display, with the parachute team from the Tigers, the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, delivering a rainbow flag to the head of the parade. If that isn’t the stamp of national acceptance, what is?
Inevitably, however, not every law-abiding person in Britain will feel like wearing a Gay pride rainbow on their person, regardless of their position on legal equality. Should these people, minding their own business, none the less be humiliated and threatened with demotion when their personal sensibilities are found wanting by the politically correct powers that be?
The bizarre actions of the National Trust this week were a stark reminder that the answer must be a firm no. As part of its Prejudice and Pride campaign to mark the 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality, bosses at the Trust’s Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk emailed its 300 volunteers demanding that they wear a badge adorned with the rainbow flag to demonstrate commitment to welcoming LGBT visitors. Although the Trust has now backtracked, the email stated that volunteers who declined to wear the rainbow flag would not be allowed to meet and greet guests at the hall. Understandably, this was interpreted by those opposed to the edict as a punishment for not “toeing the line”, with consignment to a backroom position seen as an insult to years of experience, expertise and commitment.
Responding with Orwellian roboticism to the debacle, the National Trust’s head of volunteering originally testified – in the bland yet sinister lingo of institutional political correctness – to the organisation’s commitment to “promoting equality of opportunity and inclusion”.
She seemed to have overlooked that it was the keenness to promote this agenda that triggered a disturbingly ill-judged attack on the integrity of its volunteers, on whose charitable goodwill the organisation depends.
Certainly, the National Trust appears terrified of being caught napping at the wheel of equality and inclusiveness. Yet it of all institutions should remember that there was a time in which sexuality was not something everyone wanted to crow about from the rooftops.
None the less, last month, as part of its Prejudice and Pride campaign, Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, Felbrigg Hall owner and a notoriously private man, was “outed” by the Trust in a short film narrated by Stephen Fry.
Understandably, the family of the poet and historian Mr Ketton-Cremer, who died in 1969, were upset by this apparent use of his sexuality for publicity. He was, as the family noted, “intensely” private and was not open about his sexuality.
The film made a number of loyal Trust volunteers wince, too, with those most offended by the outing of Mr Ketton-Cremer’s intimate life among those refusing to wear the Gay pride badge. Yet instead of being commended for their sensitivity, they found themselves on the back foot, having to defend themselves against the suggestion that their aversion to wearing the pride badge was homophobic.
Perhaps these overheated and misplaced concerns about sexual inclusiveness are unsurprising in a climate in which those found to discriminate face legal action like never before. In 2014, two devout Christian bakers in Belfast were sued for declining to bake a cake that said “Support gay marriage” on it. The couple lost their appeal following an anti-discrimination lawsuit whose verdict even long-time gay campaigner Peter Tatchell found problematic (the customers were not refused because of their sexuality, but because of their message).
Last month, the American Supreme Court agreed to look into a similar case at a Colorado bakery.
It is unquestionably positive that in modern Britain, discrimination based on sexuality is no longer legally tenable. We don’t know what every employee of a public organisation thinks or feels about sexuality – and nor should we. As long as they don’t break the law, individuals should be free to respond to matters of sexuality as they choose.
Forcing them to accept the liberal bottom line by decree is not only madness, it is bound to backfire. After all, we don’t yet live under the authoritarian Big Brother of George Orwell’s classic.