Originally and still meaning "weirdly or strangely different", it is an epithet used to insult homosexuals, primarly gay men. There is an attempt to rehabilitate "queer" to be an umbrella term for the GLBT community. Therefore they
pick a word that
will always mean "weirdly or strangely different", a word that obviously, from the readings of most of these contributions to the word "queer", it is still used is an very
ugly way to describe homosexuals. I suspect it
will always be
said among bigots with a smirk.
Rehabilitation is a word that is used in medicine to describe taking something sick and making it
well again. Like physical therapy or something. Are we sick and need to be rehabilitated?
Ask yourself, if you're called a 'goddamn queer' on the street, will you smile and reply 'By god, I AM QUEER! and proud of it.' I don't think so.