MamaTexan, the reason the term "gay" is used is because we (all of us) allow liberals to set the stage and terms of issues, including the language of those issues.
Liberals hated it when Americans caught on to the meaning of the word "liberal" and changed it to "progressive". They hijacked the word from its ORIGINAL political meaning, which was...surprise...a term to denote a conservative. (Note: the Soviet codename for Julius Rosenberg was "LIBERAL". That probably isn't a coincidence, and the thought of a bunch of humorless Soviet bureaucrats laughing about this "coincidence" back in the Kremlin is an interesting picture to paint...)
There was once a time when the term "homosexual" was uniformly applied to people who have sexual relations with others of their own sex. The practice rightly elicited negative reactions from people because it is abnormal, corrosive, destructive, unhealthy, and antithetical to the laws of nature. Everyone understood this. Liberals felt the term "homosexual" was too direct (as it indeed is, defining EXACTLY in its etiology what it means) and as a matter of course, tried to find a word to define homosexuals that would not elicit the same response from normal people.
They now treat the term "homosexual" as "hate speech". Try it. Just use the word homosexual in a conversation about same-sex issues, and watch the others in the conversation. The discomfort shows visibly. (I am not a bomb thrower, but I refuse to use the word "gay" in this context.)
They have hijacked the word "gay", and it is nearly impossible to engage it in general use with its original meaning (either in conversation or writing) without evoking at least an echo of the current usage.
They have fully corrupted the word. And it is not an accident.
How about the term “Sodomite”?