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The meaning of words depends on the context. If you say for example that a movie is lame are you deliberately drawing a parallel between the movie's poor quality and actually lame people, thereby insinuating that lame people are inferior to "normal" people? Or are you appropriating the word and altering its meaning in the context just like the words gay and faggot have been? Neither of them have any origin in homophobia.

"Barbarian" is a famous example, originally used by the Greek to refer to people that didn't speak the Greek language (also derogatory.) Nowadays it has an entirely different meaning because over time people used it to refer to a different idea than the one it originally expressed. Nowadays when you call someone a barbarian there are no xenophobic connotations whatsoever. There is nothing absolute about words - they are only sounds with no meaning except one which you assign them. It is only homophobic to call somebody "gay" if homophobia was actually intended.