Cool. I agree, and also think blacks and Jews need to "just get over it." I mean, words like "fag" and "nigger" and "kike" are just words, free from any historical context or emotional baggage. I mean, really, I've never been called "kike," and if I were, I'd just shrug it off. Like, if I can't sense any degradation in the word, then no one else should either, regardless of how recently a minority was violently persecuted alongside the use of those same words. And if the word I preferred over the slur was being co-opted into a slur? Stiff upper lip and all that; the majority knows best. Great job, Peppermint. You're really tidying up the social landscape. Any other words of wisdom?

Don't derail this, spotty.

I have to put out there that 'taking back the word' is an often unsuccessful approach to removing the stigma attached to a word.  Take the word nigger for instance.  Black people are self-identifying with that word, but it's taboo for anyone else to say it.  Taboo because I can't, apparently, use the word in the same way as black people because I'm not a black person... or this is what I'm told.  This poses a considerable problem because the majority of people who I ever hear use the word nigger are black and they're referring to other black people.  In my head the word nigger=black person and on another level it means something racist.  And why shouldn't it?  I'm not racist.  I'm well aware of what the word has meant and of what black people are doing by using it, at least intellectually, but if they're using the word to self-identify and they're the only people using the word, they're either reinforcing what the word has meant by constantly reminding everyone else of it or leading to the equating of nigger with themselves.  The only thing 'taking back the word' has done for black people is make it taboo for everyone else to use.

That being said, the word gay is a totally different scenario.  I self-identify using the word gay.  Gays have used this term and gays came up with the term.  It has only ever meant gay, like a (not necessarily) flamboyant, effeminate homosexual.  When I was a child and people used the word gay, it meant that.  Now, somewhere a long the line, and I have little doubt that the trend started in California (though no one has researched it yet, linguistic trends like slang and particular speech that become very popular in English have historically moved from the East coast USA to the West), someone, probably gay, used the term to describe something and it caught on.  This was probably a bad move.

I do not think of things as 'gay'.  I don't think anyone should think of things as 'gay'.  And I don't think there's a reason for people to use the term like that, unless they really want to take part in another slang trend.  I don't want to 'take back the word', for the word hasn't, until now, meant anything other than the word itself.  I don't want people to stop using it.  I was fine when people would use when it meant only gay.  It wasn't insulting to me, I am gay.  It certainly was never insulting to anyone who wasn't, unless they were particularly insecure (or closeted).  But this new usage presents a particular problem.  When people start using the word to insult others and not just to describe objects, it might actually start hurting and people might start to forget that there was ever a distinction.  I'm gay.  I call myself gay.  People have called me gay and people know gays as gay.  But not 'gay'.  I'm rather confident that the trend will die out as long as it isn't perpetuated into the national spotlight by campaigns against it... such campaigns tend to reinforce use, especially in teens (...so much for that hope).

So, I agree, partially, with the OP.  At the same time, I think it's important to realize that words have meanings and that people have emotions and that people respond to the emotions of others.  If the word gay is going to mean something other than gay, I don't want to have a part in that.  Maybe if people started to think of gays as something other than gay we wouldn't have to worry about how people use the word gay, and that is happening, but we're all different and we all notice those differences and I'm not at all sure that's a bad thing.

Of course the ambiguity behind the word might lead to hurt feelings and you should most likely refrain from using it in formal settings, but between friends all kinds of things are said. I feel like the campaign is trying to make people feel bad about off-handedly making a remark. Again, this isn't the real problem here. Eminem put it nicely:

I'm like a head trip to listen to, cause I'm only givin you
things you joke about with your friends inside your living room
The only difference is I got the balls to say it
in front of y'all and I don't gotta be false or sugarcoated at all

Point is, people get too worked up about words, when what they need to examine is why we ARE so intolerant of homosexuals. 

Having just finished studying language in something of a crash-course fashion, I've actually come to the opinion that intonation actually carries far more weight than the words themselves.

If we're out having a good time, for example, and you do something clever, I might say, 'Oh, you motherfucker!', but with the intonation suggesting a compliment. Given a different context and different tone, however, calling you a motherfucker might mean something else entirely.

Racial slurs do tend to be different (...though, curiously, 'Jew' and 'Gay' - used negatively - for some reason just don't seem to be as offensive. Perhaps that just comes from my geographical region); 'nigger' seems to be taboo for anyone who isn't black to say, regardless of tone or context.

Odd.

A concession that a civil majority makes is that the people their ancestors violently oppressed get to be called whatever the fuck they want. It's a consolation prize in lieu of giving back land and raising the murdered from the dead. It's a little agreement we can make every day that shows we're willing to meet each other half way. For people like Duane "Dog the mullet-headed meth-mouthed ex-con pseudo-cop bounty hunter," it's too much of a hardship to stop saying "nigger." All I can say is, the next time you feel yourself getting upset over "mere words" (there's no such thing), remember you've waived that right.

It would be nice if it wasn't necessary to define ourselves, but when the difference is pointed out and you're seeking for people like you it helps if the people you're looking for can be identified and then it feels good to be part of a group and to have something you can call yourself.  Kind of like atheists and this site here.  Perhaps you'd wish for atheists to disengage from calling themselves atheist?  It is, after all, ambiguous/tainted.

I understand very well what you'd like to happen, peppermint.  But people are not going to stop identifying themselves by their characteristics, least of all while their fighting for themselves on the basis of those characteristics.  Further, magilum makes an excellent point.

((Kevin, yes, intonation can add a lot of implicit meaning to a word.  It's interesting to note, however, that in a language like English the way intonation is used is very different from how it's used in a tonal language like Chinese.  Also interesting is how rythym and loudness (among other factors) can affect the meaning of words and sentences.))

I'm not sure that pleasuring yourself could be considered pleasing a member of the same sex. For a number of reasons. First, what if the person has more than one set of genitalia? Happens naturally sometimes. For another, how is yourself a member of the same sex? There is only one sex in self pleasuring, so the term "same" is inconsequential and irrelevant.

It seems like you're addressing the "black people use the word nigger" argument, which I didn't remotely bring up. I've heard the distinction made that they use the word "nigga," rather than "nigger." It's disputed whether this is a legitimate distinction, and some people think coining a derogatory term for self-reference is just another sign of colonial programming. In the broadest possible terms, the main point that sticks out to me is that it's not up to you. It's not up to the oppressors to decide whether these distinctions are logical. Part of the concession to the oppressed is not presuming to understand, and "help" with these distinctions. That presumption is itself another insult.

Huh? *rubs bloodshot eyes*

Both groups have been subject to violent oppression, and both are asking for a simple verbal concession. I see the distinction you make as a red herring. The price of wanting progress is finding we're not always on the side of it we think at a given moment.

Really? His argument was very scatter-shot, and coming from the power-majority position, not even potentially insightful.

It's hard for members of the ruling majority to understand what a double-slap in the face it is to have the terms dictated for how minorities should be regarded by their own historical oppressors. It's not your place, or mine, to decide whether the regression of a euphemism into a dysphemism is as emotionally impactful as an old slur's continued use. I don't know, because it's subjective and I'm not the subject in question. There are slurs that bother me, and I can argue their historical meaning if I must. But the important thing in this case is WE DON'T GET IT AND IT'S NOT OUR PLACE. If a black person wants to argue that with a gay person, so be it. If a black person steps forward saying it doesn't bother him, that doesn't let anyone off the hook for the people it does bother on a deep and alienating level. Arguing these points from a distance is hideously presumptuous. All of this assumes that respecting others by meeting them halfway is important. If it's not, then none of this will be meaningful to you.

Hey, I'm only partly anglo, but not black or gay, so it disqualifies me from the subjective conversation. Rather I stand outside and say that concessions must be made from one group to the next to achieve something like respect.

I don't understand.

Then I've understood perfectly. Gays have endured "faggot," "fairy," "queer," "homo," "dyke," "nancy," etc. For some of which there has been a trend of re-appropriation. Appropriating the most benign term, "gay," to demean something means there must be something demeaning about the word; meaning there must be something negative about what the word is used mainly to describe. There really is no way out of that. If "gay" means bad, gays are bad.

If it's fallacious to say that turning a term like "gay" into a negative, however thinly decontextualized, it's only because I haven't provided adequate precedent for it happening with other terms in the mainstream, mainly, IMO, because the view of gays is primitive enough that it's not considered prejudicial to consider them a stereotype. There are people who would "go there" in terms of associating black people with watermelon, say, but there is a lot of potential for backlash within the social framework in a way that isn't so for gays at this point. It's not taken seriously by the mainstream; that's why it seems OK to some people, and that's what the ad addresses.

I don't know on what basis racial and sexual epithets are unrelated, since they're often used by the same people; toward people who have faced similar risks just for visibility. There are specific differences, but to say broadly that those differences defeat the comparison is a red herring.

I think I disagree with you here, if I understand what you are suggesting.

I would ask, how close do I need to be to a topic to have my opinion counted? Do I have to be a homosexual to talk about the propper use of words like "faggot"? What if my brother is homosexual? What if I read a book on it? What if I live in a society that is constantly affected by the goings on of the homosexual community? What if I am just a person with an opinion?

I am arguing from my own perspective. It is not the perspective of a black person or a homosexual person. Those folks weigh in with their experiences and I weigh in with mine. The fact that I am a member of the oppressing majority... I don't buy that. That is just a catch all to dismiss my opinion as irrelivant right out of the gate. *That* is hideously presumptuous.