>My guess (for what it's worth) is that "Gay" has achieved a pejorative connotation, (as will any word that describes any phenomenon that society in general finds hard to understand and harder to accept) and the homosexual community is trying to rehabilitate "queer" so that it no longer does have that sort of negative association.

Well, if I may speak to that as someone who has spent the majority of my career as the token hetero in the theatre... you wouldn't believe what they call themselves (no divisiveness intended by the use of the third person plural). Gay, queer, homo, fag, and far more indelicate things than I'd care to detail in this forum! The question of pejorative seems, as usual, more tied to the inclinations/sympathies of whoever is doing the talking... While I can get away with using said words in playful banter with my gay friends, Jerry Falwell is unlikely to reap the same benefit of the doubt.