Hikou:
I completely agree. My intention with bringing this up is just to see how people on here would react when actually thinking about the effects it may have, so I haven’t thought too hard about how anything would actually be changed.

I honestly think the only thing that would really decrease it is time. That seems to be what happened with racial slurs, and even though people still say them today, it’s a lot less accepted than gay ones. Trying to talk to people about it definitely wouldn’t work. This is a discussion board so most people here are moderately open minded, but random kids on the internet would call anyone saying to stop using it a sensitive sjw and just keep doing it.

I also don’t want to burden any of the people I know by trying to get them to stop saying it because I’m sure they’d just get annoyed. I was even nervous posting this in the first place because it’s something that pretty much everyone says. That’s why I keep specifying that I don’t expect people to stop saying it or anything.

saying that the word gay actually evolved although it's often used as a replacement for "stupid" and such sounds a bit silly to me. if anything, it lost part of its meaning/got readapted thanks to internet culture, just like "literally" - but that's not exactly what i'd call "evolution" lol

i personally find it pretty harmless though, not that big of a deal

Vitamin:
I was basing the fact that most people are accepting off of places where people would be on the internet playing video games.

I guess I just misinterpreted the sheep part so I see what you mean.

And you’re right, my opinion likely won’t change because I’m the one who has to live with it, so why would I spend my life hating myself if I don’t have to. And the reason I just assume things is because I’ve had this argument with religious people sooo many times and it’s always exactly the same. I apologize if I assumed wrong and I’d be happy to discuss if you’re actually open to thoughts on the subject and I’d try to be as open as I can be to your opinions. I just usually find it to be pointless because your arguments would be based off of religious beliefs that I don’t believe in, so it generally goes nowhere.

Arguing over the word is honestly just semantics and depends how you interpret it, but the “phobia” part usually isn’t taken literally. Most definitions I hear is that it’s a prejudice against homosexuality.

And I’m not sure what you’re trying to say with your last part. You’re implying that happiness in this situation and being a good person can’t go together? Why would I not want happiness, and how would people converting from gay to straight somehow them a better person. I never said happiness is the overall goal of life, and I would agree that being a good person is more important, I just don’t see how being straight in any way changes that.

To everyone else:
I’m not trying to make that big of a deal out of it, just wanna hear thoughts. I was just thinking about this at 2am and was curious what people would say when actually thinking about it since most people just mindlessly say it.

That was mb for lack of a better word, what I meant was the use of the word has broadened to include the effects of ‘internet culture’ and the likes.

"Vitamin:
I was basing the fact that most people are accepting off of places where people would be on the internet playing video games. "

I took your original post to mean the term as it would apply to the population as a whole. It would seem that this is a case in which we talked past each other.

"I guess I just misinterpreted the sheep part so I see what you mean.

And you’re right, my opinion likely won’t change because I’m the one who has to live with it, so why would I spend my life hating myself if I don’t have to. And the reason I just assume things is because I’ve had this argument with religious people sooo many times and it’s always exactly the same. I apologize if I assumed wrong and I’d be happy to discuss if you’re actually open to thoughts on the subject and I’d try to be as open as I can be to your opinions. I just usually find it to be pointless because your arguments would be based off of religious beliefs that I don’t believe in, so it generally goes nowhere."

Why would you hate yourself? God doesn't hate you for being gay. This is an argument I see a lot and it never made sense. Everybody lives in sin, in one way or another, because we as humans are fallible. The one thing that we have to do is be repentant for our sins.

Also on the point of hating yourself, if there is a legitimate reason to hate yourself, then that should be something that you change about yourself. Humans don't get to accept themselves for who they are, this New Age crap with loving yourself is ridiculous.we should always be pushing to better ourselves and find flaws with ourselves that we can fix.

When you assume you make an Ass out of U and Me.

I'm perfectly open to hearing differing opinions from my own, however I can offer no promises that you'll be able to change my mind on this issue. I believe I've discussed this with pouffy in depth before, and we've reached a rather respectable agree to disagree stance on the issue.

Not everything I use is going to be based on religious viewpoints, most of it is ingrained in biology. I think our biggest contention, if we were to pursue this argument, would be on the interpretation of the biological facts, which evidence we use, and what we view as more substantial and logical.

"Arguing over the word is honestly just semantics and depends how you interpret it, but the “phobia” part usually isn’t taken literally. Most definitions I hear is that it’s a prejudice against homosexuality."

The intention of that segment in the original response was merely to poke fun at something I find ridiculous. Specifically I find ridiculous the fact that we started labeling this homophobia when it is not in fact a fear of gay people, but rather a rejection of their sexuality.

"And I’m not sure what you’re trying to say with your last part. You’re implying that happiness in this situation and being a good person can’t go together? Why would I not want happiness, and how would people converting from gay to straight somehow them a better person. I never said happiness is the overall goal of life, and I would agree that being a good person is more important, I just don’t see how being straight in any way changes that."

Happiness and being a good person usually does go together, however the intention should be to first be a good person, and happiness should be a result of that, rather than a goal in and of itself.

To follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Lord and savior, is to attempt to be a good man. When we stray from those teachings we are considered to be living in sin. This wasn't specifically an attack against homosexuality, rather I was trying to point out that sacrificing happiness sometimes becomes a necessity regardless of whether you are good or bad, living in sin or living outside of sin, whether you do the right things or not, you're never going to be able to achieve lasting happiness. It's just not how the human psyche works. I'd say that being straight has very little to do with being good, but rather that its opposite has a lot to do with being a sinful person.

damn i just call things gay and don't think too much about it, that's all it was until people started looking for something to make themselves mad i don't really think there's that much harm without any hateful roots unless you want to be called homosexual because it offends you that much think it's kinda a case of people not wanting to be called something they arent who knows i dont

Vitamin:
I’ve been through this conversation enough times and I’d rather not do it again, but there is one thing you said that I will address.

You may whole heartedly believe your religion and believe that completely following it is what makes you a good person, but that is not the overall definition of being a good person. And I’m sorry but an unproven book telling me that being gay is wrong and providing 0 reason why besides “it’s a sin” is not a convincing enough reason for me to sacrifice much of my happiness, time, and energy to try to change it and likely fail.

I’d like to move on from this topic since it’s not what I wanted to discuss in my thread, but if you want to reply or further discuss anything feel free to pm me.

Woeb:
Lol I’m not totally sure what you’re trying to say, but I get what you mean by the not wanting to be called something you aren’t. It just also seems to have certain undertones to it that associates these negative things to being gay. Just my thoughts on it though.

i'm js i've been called a two legged mammal more than a few times and had them put effort behind it as if it was meant to be an insult

it's probably more meaningful given the context of the situation

Yea there are definitely other words that are used negatively, gay is just used wayyy more than anything else, and I just thought that it being so common could affect some people coming to terms w being gay. There’s nothing really to do about it though. It’s so common that it’s hard to expect millions of people to stop just because it hurts some people out there.

in my opinion, it ultimately comes down to someone to choose to be offended by a word or not