A QUEST!

This word, that once innocently connoted happiness and carefree pleasure, has in the last half-century become a monster of popular culture. Everything, whether hilarious, disgusting, distasteful, or anything else, can be labled "GAY." Why is this, children??

This presents a seemingly insurmountable quest of urgent importance to the freedom of the world!!! I charge you, inimitable cyberhost, discover for me the origin of the word "gay" with its *current* meaning! From whence did this miraculous term spring forth!?