I find it rather ironical that the word "gay" was once an ordinary word for happy and then became the word chosen by...gays...to be used as an agreeable word for themselves...in response to the nastier insult words like "queer", "faggot", etc that gay-hating people were using...

but now in every Canadian school the favoured insult word for gay-hating youths to use in order to denigrate gays is..............

(drum roll)

GAY!!!! It has become a "hate" word for teenagers!

Amazing, isn't it? You just can't stop people from being prejudiced, fearful idiots by popularizing a politically correct new word to replace a politically correct older word.

Another similar history: black, negro, darkie, n*gger, shine, afro-American, colored person, black!!! (full circle)

Another similar history: Indian, noble savage, redman, Injun, savage (period), redskin, First Nations person, Native, Native American... (sigh)

You can always find people willing to find one or another of the above words deeply offensive, but the question is...which one??? And when?

That answer varies as the style changes. Note that one of the above words is presently considered SO offensive that I put an asterisk in it so as not to be stigmatized and possibly burned at the stake for daring to put it in print.

Lenny Bruce had the right idea about all this. He dared to demonstrate just how silly it is, until people got the point: we are all one people, and our differences are a blessing, not a problem.