To rejigger the analogy one more time for those who still aren’t getting it, try this:
We know that the word “sweet” has a generally positive connotation.
“Check out the sweet car!”
“I got a sweet deal on my house.”
“That girl is so sweet.”
If you call something or someone “sweet” you’re making a positive assessment of that thing or person, and the language that you’re choosing in context demonstrates that assessment. When you say it, you’re doing so because sweet equals good.
You wouldn’t call a broken down Yugo “sweet” or receive a paper back with a D- grade and exclaim “Sweet!” Why? Because sweet wouldn’t be a proper exclamation in such circumstances.
Now, if would see a broken down Yugo and say “That car is so gay, man.” or get back that paper with the big red D- and say “This is gay!” what are you saying?
You’re saying that gay is synonymous with something unwanted, stupid, broken or otherwise unacceptable or unworkable. Gay equals bad.
Now, why does gay equal bad? Gay, a word which we’ve already defined as having two common meanings: either bright, cheerful, happy and silly or homosexual. Unless the correlation of gay with bad is somehow an association with “bright, cheerful, happy and silly” with things which are bad, the only obvious, logical explanation for “gay” as a pejorative term is the word’s definition and association with homosexuals.
Whether someone intends to slur homosexuals when they say “my rifle was acting gay” or what have you, that is the unspoken implication of their words and it is offensive on its on merits regardless of the intent of the speaker.
When I was a girl, growing up in semi-rural Mississippi in the 1960’s, it wasn’t uncommon to hear the word “nigger” attached to anything shabby and in need of repair, at least from certain members of the community. “Drive on down the road a piece and turn when you see the big blue nigger house.” or “Bubba bought himself a nigger car, but he’s gonna fix it up right nice.” Some speakers intended this as a slight by association – blacks never had anything nice, or if they did it didn’t stay nice for long – but even when they didn’t, it’d put a lump in my throat nonetheless, because I knew (from comments from the same segment of the community) that I was a nigger, and if nothing good was ever referred to that way, that must mean something about me.
Words have meaning, but so does context. If the context of your usage is offensive, what you’ve said is offensive, period. It doesn’t matter if you are or are not prejudiced against whomever or whatever is implicated in what you’ve said – when you cast out a slur, it’s like a blanket, and it covers whether you mean it to or not.
