Interesting that there’s such a long history of the word. I really don’t think I ever heard it used ‘that way’ until late 70s as the homosexual lobby was gathering steam. (around the same time abortions became ‘choices’)
Yea, I know what you mean. That was around the same time that “patriotic” came to mean “war monger”, “capitalist” came to mean “evil oppressor of the working classes”, “wealthy” or “successful business person” came to mean someone who “doesn’t pay their fair share” and “white” or “Caucasian” came to mean “racist”.
I think gay to mean homosexual probably really didn’t come into popular or widespread usage until the late 70’s, the disco era, but had been used prior to that, particularly in some circles more as a code word as it was considered less pejorative than other terms.