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Full disclosure:
I recently uploaded The Queen of Hearts (a collection of novels written in the 1850s) by Wilkie Collins to the MR library. As well as changing 'gayety' to 'gaiety' and 'gayly' to 'gaily' I also changed 'gay' to 'light-hearted'. I did this because the English language has changed in the last 150 odd years. In our day 'a gay man' would almost certainly be read as 'a homosexual man,' and this is simply not what Collins meant - he would have used a different term if he had dared to mention a character's sexual orientation at all. I did add a note to the posting that I had updated spelling and hyphenation - I also changed 'to-day' to 'today' for example.
How does that grab you?
Just in case it's necessary: I make no judgement of any kind on anyone for his or her sexual orientation. It's none of my damn business.
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