Please note that I am not laughing at the man offended, at gays in general, or at sexuality at large. Neither am I laughing at the kids who have hijacked "gay" for their own purposes and meaning (as silly as this one seems to me).
Instead, as an English/Writer/Word dude, I was laughing at the irony and of the abysmal historical knowledge. All language is in flux. Language, by definition, is a cultural construct. As such, it will change to follow the new-cut riverbed of our meandering social stream. At times, the modification of language and word meaning is fairly logical. At others, it seems quixotic.
The irony here, of course, is that "gay" was usurped from its prior meaning of light-hearted happiness to represent, instead, homo-sexual men. I don't understand that etymological shift, but whatever.
In like fashion, I don't understand the current, typically youthful, use of "gay" to mean stupid or silly or lame or dumb or whatever. I do understand that it represents a continued shift of language and, while I am not likely to use the word as such, I am not going to find it anything other than childish.
This is not to say that there should be no constraints on language. I think it appropriate for there to be a tension between modernity and history. This includes the fact that words do have power and that their power should be respected. I, as an example, try to limit "awesome" to that which is not only spectacular, but to that which is spectacular and God created. If I am going to be in "awe" of something, and since I can't think of a higher emotional state, that word should be limited to creation of the highest order and, by extension, that which created it.
The thing that got to me, I guess, is this. I don't really care whether you are single, married, homo-sexual, bi-sexual, in a polyandrous relationship, celibate or any other of the myriad of sexually expressive constructs. Again, whatever. Up here there is a girl my son's age who is now attending a very good college. Smart kid and very talented in her sport. Her mom and dad are divorced (after 3 kids and 8 years), the mom is the managing partner of a local company and the dad, who does not have a ton of educational experience, works as one of the new employee trainers part time, for her, and goes home to his sugar-daddy each night. As mentioned some posts ago, since it is a small community, everyone knows. Indeed, since it is one of the more significant businesses, almost everyone deals with one or both of them fairly regularly. As far as I know, and this is the important part, no one cares. She is kind but a bit aloof; he is a lot of fun to hang out with but not the most responsible. For both, their sexual choices have a part in developing the persons they are today. However, neither are defined by their sexual expression; their sexual choices are not who they are but simply part of who they are. I like that.
So, when I get someone on the radio telling me that "gay" is a sacred word, insisting that it remain the PC term, and leaning heavily on the insinuation that being hip and modern and accepting and contemporary is all delineated by a reverence of this word, I want to gag. So I laugh instead; if he really was so hip and smart and relevant, he would recognize that "gay" was stolen from an entirely different context, that language is ever changing, and that 20 years from now it will likely mean something entirely different again. Underneath his relatively benign request is an insidious implication for protected status. I decline.
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