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5 Aug 2017

National Trust gay pride row – Margo James interview

Presenter

The National Trust has backed down in a row over its gay pride campaign. Only yesterday the heritage charity told volunteers at a Norfolk stately home that they’d be taken off public facing duties if they refused to wear rainbow badges celebrating its Prejudice and Pride events.

Today, after some volunteers said they were uncomfortable about sporting the badges and lanyards, the National Trust said doing so would be optional.

The row erupted after a new film commissioned by the National Trust outed a Norfolk squire nearly half a century after his death. Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer left his Jacobean ancestral home Felbrigg Hall to the nation, knowing he would produce no heirs. The film’s narrator, actor Stephen Fry said to keep his personal story hidden would allow prejudice to flourish.

The National Trust said it wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. We’re joined by the Business Minister Margo James who has herself campaigned on LGBT issues.