I thought a fag always meant a homo. In terms of ‘long haired commie type pinko fags’ I think it means scrawny boys/men who wear their hair long; snowflakes & misfits, if you will; like our contemporary crop of soshal justis warrors that we have today. May or may not be literally homosexual in this case i think.
I’m talking about our usage in the 70s and 80s, as youths. The strict definition might have been homo, but it was mostly used to call someone a pussy, weak, effeminate and so on. Calling someone a faggot was an escalation. Saying something was faggy did mean that it looked homosexual—a murse, or a purple shirt or something like that. So I guess it’s just a word that had nuances of usage.
In the UK, common slang for a cigarette.