Jokes about the mentally ill

[Flameow]

I don't take offense to "that's retarded/that's gay".  If you said "that's stupid", people wouldn't get mad like "oh so now you hate people of lesser intelligence!"  Just because a word can be used to describe a human doesn't mean it's being used in that context.  I think when people get offended, they're just failing to see the versatility of the English language.  Saying "retarded" or "gay" isn't demeaning to retarded or gay people, it's being used in an entirely different situation, and has a different meaning. 
If I describe something that seems twisted or weird, I might say "that movie was dark."  But people don't make some weird connection in their head like "Dark people --> Dark --> Twisted-omigosh you're saying that black people are twisted!"  But here it goes "Retarded people ---> Retarded ---> Stupid"  It's mostly people jumping to conclusions and making weird associations in their heads, and assuming that the speaker means something that they don't.

Yeah, I know I don't make very much sense.