Richie said: No, because happy people are not a cultural or lifestyle minority. Admittedly the term "gay" to describe a homosexual person is derived from its use as an alternative term for "happy", but that's beside the point. "Gay" is the term that has actually been adopted by the homosexual community to describe themselves. Its use as an insult has been lifted directly out of that by homophobes. Homophobia is tantamount to racism, and racism equals ignorance.
Not that I'm calling you ignorant, or homophobic, or indeed racist (in fact you're probably the most relentlessly friendly person on this forum, for which I respect you a lot), I'm just saying, that's where it comes from. I know gay people who continually object to the word's use as an insult, but otherwise find it amusing if I jokingly refer to them as "fags" or "benders", because unlike those words, the insult isn't in the implication, it's in the origin.
Yeah, I know what you mean, and my point isn't based on predjudice, but simply the fact that, as you point out, the word 'gay' was adopted by the gay community for a certain reason, and now the word has been recycled for another reason. In all honesty, I don't know where using the word gay to describe a bad thing came from, but my guess is that it probably came in response to the homosexual meaning of the word.
All the same, gay people (I am going back a long way, mind you) can not just adopt a word from the language and then just expect the word to become sacrosanct and untouchable from that point on. If one group can adopt a word to give it a new meaning, why can't others? In fact, I would dare suggest that the word 'gay' used to describe a bad thing has become so ingrained in the lexicon now that were the word actually came from has become forgotten.
I'm not sure where you are, Richie, but I know that here in Australia it's very culturally diverse, and there is alot of tiptoeing that goes on here for fear of not offending one group or another. I tend to think everyone needs to be more tolerant and approach things with good humour, and trying to look at all perspectives.
*steps down off soapbox 😀
