My Take:
The world can have a weird sense of humor. The gentleman who made the remark to you was, of course, not offending you personally (as you stated yourself he doesn’t know you well enough to do that). The joke (or attempt at a joke) came from his thinking his shock effect of the joke would tickle people’s funny bones and (possibly) raise him to a higher regard with everyone in ear-shot. Yeah I think he perceives such a shock effect statement to raise his social status level for the moment. i.e. “Gee there is a funny guy” . Or, “gee, he sure knows how to make get the attention of a crowd”, Or “gee, he’s much wittier then the rest of us”.
I used to make the same shock effect jokes. If I was amongst friends who like to do activity A and there may be one person who likes to do activity B in the crowd, we’d often say, “People who do activity B are homesexuals”. I honestly thought I was funny and of course, I didn’t really tin khe was a homosexual. In fact, If I thought he was I probably wouldn’t have used that particular joke.
Having been on both sides of the fence on this type of thing, my choice, now, would be to ignore it but attempt to ignore it in a way that it is apparent I view the attempt of humor to be disingenuous and even childlike/ immature. In other words, look right at him for a long moment and say nothing. I don’t feel it is my place in the world to stand up for every little infraction that comes my way.
Having said this though, I respect the stance you took. But if you wish to take such a stance, you must take the consequences. Which are secular consequences that come from a secular society. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you can (and wish) to take the heat, more power to you I respect that.
