As a person gets older and gains more experience with the world at large, I don’t imagine it’s uncommon for he or she to ruminate on past behaviors and, in retrospect, find them abhorrent, and wish they could take them back, even if a valid case could be made that at the time, their earlier selves were to immature to know any better.

For me, one of those things is the tendency, common today among many otherwise rational and caring adults, of using “gay”, “queer”, or other more explicit terms I’m not going to type here as a form of insult, as in “That shirt is so gay!” or whatever…

This was a very common thing in my middle school years; at that point, I’m not even entirely sure I knew what was meant by it (I was a somewhat socially maladjusted fat kid, and was frankly, behind on this sort of thing), but as I hadn’t yet recognized the pointlessness of being considered “popular”, I used this sort of slang as an effort emulate the “cool kids”.

That was before I had really met anybody who didn’t appear significantly different from me. Mid-sized towns in Northeast Pennsylvania weren’t exactly the most heterogeneous places in the world in those days, after all. Subconsciously, I guess, using that sort of language couldn’t possibly offend anyone, because that sort of person didn’t really exist in my world, or didn’t exist anywhere except in the mythical land of San Francisco, on the covers of a couple of video tapes behind the curtain at that little independent video store on the edge of town (I know of course now that this assuption was patently false, but at the time, that was my world, and I’m pretty sure the prevailing conditions kept those who might change it under the radar).

However, as I grew up, widened my horizons, and actually met people (or found out people I already knew) who were gay, and by all rights, decent and normal human beings, and in many cases, good friends, I realized how much of an asshole I and all those people who were trying to fit in or thought they were clever were being by tossing around prejudicial remarks for no particularly good reason. Sometimes, I’m still really uncomfortable about it.

Anyway, I’m sorry, to anyone I made unconfortable back then.

Given my own little personal struggle with this, it really bothers me when I encounter people today who toss around “gay” as an insult or derrogatory reference. It’s one thing to talk about how a certain establishment is a “gay” bar, in the sense that a large number of homosexual men congregate there, or the sense that the movie Jefferey” is “gay”, because it’s about gay characters – that’s true information; there’s nothing wrong with talking about “gay” as a neutral adjective, But saying “that’s gay”, with that unmistakable inflection that indicates disapproval and dismissiveness of the object being modified, that bugs me.

Really bugs me.

I know that unfamiliar differences sometimes make people uncomfortable – it’s understandable; evolution has ensured that our base, repitilian brains distrust the unknown as a survival instinct – but I hang on to a scrap of optimism that most people aren’t particularly bigoted, and don’t set out to be so in any active way. It’s just that a lot of people don’t take the time to think about what effect the things they’re saying might have before the words cascade forth from their mouths.

Of those people, all I ask is that you perhaps consider what you’re saying before you say it. It’s only common courtesy. Also, there exists out there a wealth of much more creative coarse and insulting language out in the world to explore; why go for the “easy burn” when you can compose something teeming with originality?

Of course, if you’re one of the minority of people who are being intentionally bigoted…please go away; I haven’t the time for you.