I would like to know why there is intense focus on not offending people? Sure, people should not go about intentionally offending people, but someone will be offended by something somewhere, someday, even if we don't intend it.
I have seen this occur in everything from questions ranging from professors asking how to discipline their students, to people asking about addressing potential cases of sexism. Everyone seems to put being non-offensive to anyone, above figuring out how the original issue can be solved.