Usage and acceptability of the word "queer"

In the Corpus of Current American English, there are 64 uses of queer in the last year, and good chunk of them appear to have the meaning of "strange" rather than "homosexual", but the vast majority (perhaps all) of the "strange" uses describe things, not people. It seems that at least in the US today, a queer person is usually a homosexual, and if you don't intend that meaning, you might want to choose another adjective.

On another note, it is the term of choice for a large part of that community and wouldn't be derogatory if used respectfully.