The other day I was at a gathering of friends, and friends of friends, for a smashing big party. Some of the friends had kids, which meant the party stayed fairly PG-13 until the babies started crying and needed to be taken home. After the congregation became adult only, adult-only language started being used.

Most of it didn’t surprise me. The seven deadly words, for instance. Sexual innuendo. Gangsta rap. Y’know.

Some of it did.

In specific, the prevalance of “Oh my God, that’s so gay” rather shocked me. Especially considering these were Pagan friends, and respect for sexual and gender diversity tends to be the rule amongst Pagans. (The oft-quoted bit of liturgy is, “‘For all acts of love are My rituals,’ says the Goddess,” and of course, “An it harm none do as ye will.”) So it was really, really odd to hear fellow Pagans using the term “gay” as a negative.

After it became clear that people weren’t just quoting Kids In The Hall or being ironic, I asked why they said that so often. I got two answers from two different people.

Here’s answer #1: “Oh, we’re not saying “gay.” It’s “ghei,” G-H-E-I. Nothing to do with gay people at all.”

Here’s answer #2: “Hey, if it’s politically incorrect, I’ll be sure to do it.” And, when pushed further, the speaker expanded the answer to, “I’m not going to change how I’ve lived for 40+ years just because some people get offended over every little thing.”

Here’s my answer to both of them:

“That’s mighty white of you.”

Seriously. No one uses “white” as a synonym for “morally correct,” except in very specific contexts that are even now falling out of disuse (”little white lie” we still say a lot, and no one thinks those are actually morally correct; we say “white magic” and “black magic” a hell of a lot less these days) unless they want to be taken for a racist. And I have never run into someone excusing the phrase “That’s mighty white of you” by saying “Oh, but I spell it W-H-Y-T-E, so it has nothing to do with race.” It is simply. Not. Said. Except by people who actually do think that Caucasians have got a corner on the moral rectitude market. And to hell with them.

And you know something? Conflating skin color with morality was always derogatory towards those who didn’t have the skin color associated with being a good person. Regardless of whether it was done in the hearing of a black person who subsequently got offended (and rightly so!), it was derogatory towards him and everyone else who wasn’t “mighty white”-looking. In the time since that was considered a socially acceptable thing to say, what changed is not “people getting offended at every little thing.” What changed is racism became socially inacceptable. In the mainstream, at least. And about bloody time.

You’ll find the current backlash against using “gay” to mean “distasteful, bad, tacky, or disgusting” is similar. What’s changed in the 40+ years that Mr. Answer #2’s been alive is, homosexuality is losing its stigma, and homophobia is losing its acceptability.

And the whole “I really said ‘ghei’” thing? Plausible deniability. I mean, why would you choose an insult word that’s indistinguishable from “gay” when spoken unless you wanted people to hear you using “gay” as an insult? Hell, that deniability isn’t even plausible.

I have only heard one satisfying transmogrification of “gay-as-insult” that kept the specific sense of a stylistic sort of badness, and continued to reference homosexuality, but somehow managed to lose the content that’s derogatory towards gays. Instead it manages to sound derogatory towards anyone who would say “ew, that’s so gay.” And I think it only works amongst the guys I know of who came up with it, several of whom are bisexual and were specifically making fun of a homophobic co-worker.

But I’ll throw it out there and see what you think:

“Oh my God, like, that is so rainbow.”