I find that there is a tendency, especially perhaps among young people, to use the word 'gay' to mean 'of poor quality', 'bad', 'rubbish'. My contemporaries at high school employed this usage of the word; I trust that they have now grown out of it. (I have in general fallen out of touch with them and so have no recent data from which to judge.) I challenge my young colleagues about this repeatedly, though with precisely no positive result and sometimes with the result that they do it more often and chortle about it. I have brought it up in my reviews with my manager, who is excellent, with apparently as little effect.
Why is this homophobic expression seen as so unimportant? The very ease with which it is passed off when I do bring it up makes it the more unpalatable: the people who use it don't care that I and others find it offensive, or that it perpetuates the social norm of homosexuality - and by extension homosexuals - being seen as undesirable and aberrant. They even laugh at it. I am a student of language, so I have more respect for how it can be used to create significant effects, but it doesn't take much study to realise that if a child is told repeatedly that it cannot do something it will be less likely to try. By extension it seems clear to me that if said child hears that its sexual orientation is synonymous with something broken it will see that aspect of itself as broken and be more likely to suffer as a result.
We no longer use racial stereotypes in general conversation, and if we do we are sanctioned. My workplace for one has a strict policy on this. Demeaning gender stereotypes are frowned upon as well. So why is it more acceptable to use 'gay' to denote something rubbish? Is it because many gay people are white males (my preferred reason)? Because society has not yet got to the point of organically outlawing this discrimination as it has with many racial and gender insults? If it is the latter, those who use the word in this way are amoral sheep, bleating it repeatedly until specifically instructed not to.
Maybe that's the argument to use to stop them doing it. Simply telling them that it is unacceptable didn't work, and their concern for me was insufficient to stop them after it became quite clear that I personally find it offensive. Suggesting that gay people might not like it only prompted even one of the team members I respect the most to inform me that s/he has a family member who is gay and who uses the word in this way; I still don't see the relevance of this information to the current situation. To their credit I believe that if I were gay that fact, in combination with my finding it offensive, would stop it. I believe this to be the first situation to have caused me to wish even briefly that I were not heterosexual, which I think is telling about the way non-heterosexual orientations are perceived and which supports my argument to stop promoting this perception.
On several occasions I have repressed the urge to say something that I think would offend them, or make them uncomfortable enough to think about their own use of language. They know that I am a Christian and I'm sure they're aware that there are many Christian groups whose chief pleasure in life inexplicably appears to be the denouncing of homosexuality and gay people, so I have contemplated telling them that I find homosexuals to be all sorts of evil and subhuman, with the aim either of making them realise the level of offence possible by their use of 'gay' as a derogatory adjective or of making them think I am a rabid homophobe who must not be encouraged. Unfortunately, whilst either of these aims if achieved would probably reduce the instances of 'gay' being used in this way, the initial statement would be a gigantic lie and as such I do not believe myself capable of uttering it.
So I continue as I have been, challenging it when I can. My remaining hope is that by repeating my objections as often as possible I will bore those around me into not wanting to provoke another repetition by using 'gay' as a derogatory adjective.
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