I believe as a principle that everything should be joked about, because if you can joke about something it doesn't have a hold over you. however, i understand that some people aren't there yet about certain topics. that doesn't get to affect what happens outside of that person's presence though.

I can see the argument about using discomforting terms casually, but I'm enough of a dick to not care about that unless I know someone is going to be actually upset as opposed just offended on principle.