That behavior is not acceptable
Warning: this post contains considerable vulgarity. If you find this distateful, you might want to go over here, instead...
One of my AA sponsees has both a considerable anger problem and a habit of throwing vulgarities and epithets around. He comes from redneck stock, and it shouldn't surprise me. But it still does.
I am out to this guy. He knows my story - both as a drunk and as a long-term closeted gay man. But despite that, he still hasn't figured out that "faggot" is not an acceptable term, no matter who he's talking about. So when he's spouting off about one of the many people he still resents the hell out of, the phrase Goddamned fucking faggot still flies out of his mouth.
And when I sit bolt-upright and say, "Oh, really?" he still tries (at least at first) to give me this "Come on, you know I don't mean you" line. "Nah, you're gay, man - he's the Goddamned fucking faggot."
"Oh, so this is evidently Oz, and I'm the Good Fag of the North, and this guy's the Wicked Fag of the West? Is that how it works?" I shot back, the first time he tried pulling this crap. "Sorry, that crap just doesn't fly here, bucko."
It's exactly the same argument I used to hear about "black" and "nigger." It didn't fly with me 30 years ago, and it ain't flyin' today, neither.
I watched with amusement pompous press like The Advocate declaring that the "F-word" dead - that no one would dare touch it. I don't know what little gay campus they're living in, but here in northwest Ohio, "the other F-word" is alive and well, thank you boys.
"Sorry to tell you, bucko," I told my sponsee the other night, "but when the rest of the world says faggot, they're talking about me. And regardless of what spin you try to put on it, when you say faggot, you're affirming that their use of the word is correct. You say faggot when you think of a despicable human being; so do they. You think you can put your good gay friends in some bubble, but you can't. Going around calling people faggot is unacceptable. Period."
(end rant)
