Keeping camp

By Jon Huggett

Published in The Spectator on 2020-9-25

Keeping camp

Sir: Matthew Parris claims (19 September) that ‘the age of camp is over’ for gay people and that ‘we’re wanting not to be different’. I beg to differ. Camp has been enjoyed over the centuries and across the world. It is still fun, and I hope it does not go away.

I’m more in tune with Fraser Nelson who, in the same edition, calls diversity ‘a gift to be seized with both hands’. As a gay man, I’m comfortable being different, and don’t aspire to look or act straight. My life is enriched by friends of all religions and races. None of them want an ‘integrated theism’. A colour-blind society would be a colourless society. We are not divided by our differences; we are divided by not celebrating our differences.

Like Matthew, I dream of a world where we are treated equally. Pride events are still visible because they are unusual. The rest of the year, we check our surroundings before holding hands, even in London or San Francisco. Gay sex is still illegal in nearly 70 countries. Imagine a world where none of us live in fear because of who we love. I promise that world will not be boring.

Jon Huggett

San Francisco