I'm glad this has been brohught up. In our rural school in Somerset, UK, we are currently tackling this issue as a form of bullying to our homosexual students (admitedly there are only about 10 of us out of 1300 but oh well), as "gay" is becomming a subsitute for words such as "crap" or "rubbish" which students would have previously used to indicate they did not like something. Now its "oh this is gay Miss" or "Oh your so Gay!" - and one specific teacher noticed it along with myself, and now management have caught wind of it, and we're cracking down! Now I'm in sixform, so it's easier on me slightly, and I recognise where the problems are coming up, but for some of our younger school members, it probably isn't so hard to express their concern over such a word being used in their classroom by obviously less mature students. 
 
Thank god its being sorted rather swiftly... nobody will ever utter "gay" in my lessons again...hopefully

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