During a heated exchange on my Facebook wall, a “friend”—I’ll call him “DB”—remarked that while I was “cool,” the rest of those posting on my thread, including family members of mine, were “faggots.”

As soon as I realized what he had said, I deleted him from my friends’ list.

Soon thereafter, evidently unaware that I unfriended this person, another friend of mine—someone who I do indeed know personally and who I’ll call “Ted”—contacted me privately to share his judgment that the use of the word “faggot” on the part of the offending individual was “problematic.”

In other words, Ted was upset primarily because of the specific insult that DB used as a conversation-spoiler. That DB spoiled the conversation by way of gratuitously insulting others was of secondary importance.

According to Ted, unlike any number of other nasty pejoratives, “faggot” has “a toxic past.”

Admittedly, the idea that a word has a “toxic” history is, at best, a vague one. I suspect that what Ted’s driving at is something like this: To use “faggot,” at least in the sense in which DB used it, is “careless and callous” because it perpetuates “intolerance” of “homosexuals.”

Where to begin?

First, while it is undeniably true that, for much, though not all, of its history, the word “faggot” has been used as an epithet to describe homosexuals, it has usually referred to homosexual men.

DB referred to “men and women” on my wall as “faggots.” These are, importantly, men and women about whose sexual orientation he knows nothing.

Second, “faggot” can and has also been used pejoratively to reference a “repellent,” but heterosexual, male.

Third, “faggot” needn’t be construed as a pejorative at all and, in fact, is “sometimes used within the gay community as a positive term of self-reference.”

Fourth and, most importantly, “faggot,” not unlike language generally—as, ironically, Ted himself unfailingly insists in our many conversations—has continued to evolve in its long trajectory from its sexually-neutral etymological origins. Interestingly, for an increasing number of people, particularly the young, “faggot” is evolving once more away from the sexual connotations that it’s acquired to mean something like “idiot.”

According to UrbanDictionary.com, “faggot” is no longer used to refer to a homosexual, but is instead a synonym of sorts for “stupid” and “loser.” Below is the example that is given:

Ralph: Chris hasn’t been answering his phone.

John: Yeah, he is probably hanging out with those other kids, that’s why.

Ralph: He is such a faggot.

John: Yeah, him and his faggot friends.

Given the context, it is unquestionably the case that DB used “faggot” in this last sense. That this way of speaking is indeed callous and crass, to say nothing of sophomoric, is not in dispute. Nor is there any denying that it can be offensive to homosexuals (and others).

However, the point is that Ted seems to assume that the word “faggot” has a life—a static life—of its own, that it must be offensive whenever it’s used—even when it’s used toward heterosexual men and women, or even when employed within the context of friendships such as that which “John” and “Ralph” have with “Chris” in the foregoing illustration.

The word, while it certainly remains a pejorative for gay men, has a range of connotations that are not limited to this.

Thus, it’s not at all clear how DB’s, Ralph’s, and John’s use of “faggot” perpetuates “intolerance” of gays. It’s even more difficult to discern what this can even mean given that Ted holds up as an example of such “intolerance” the Republican Party’s 2016 Platform! Pence, Ted declared, is representative of the platform in being “rigorously anti-homosexual.”

So, belief in the civilizational ideal of historical (heterosexual) marriage reveals an “intolerance” of homosexuals?! And using the word “faggot,” then, helps to promote such things as traditional marriage? In all fairness, this conversation occurred very quickly via private messaging, so Ted may have had more to say here.

But since he is the one leveling this charge, the burden is on him to prosecute his case.