I think your husband was the most unreasonable of the two, yes her calling him a twat isn’t really acceptable but lamenting the days where you could use slurs that have helped discriminate against a section of the population and made the life of many people much harder, would make me question who I am married to tbh.
My step-dad was always a little homophobic and also would make comments about other subsets of the population (he is black himself) like “The Romanis” as if racially charged commentary is totally okay.
Every time he did I would absolutely call him out on it and tell him how unnacceptable it is. I don’t care how harmless he think he is being or if he feels he isn’t being insulting. And honestly everytime he spoke like I think he is a total wanker (As much as I love him). We are very close and so I visit and stay at his sometimes but he is quite archaic and will make sexist comments (expect me to cook every meal because I am a woman amongst other things) And while I am visiting his house I do still tell him to fuck off, it’s not because I am visiting his house and that he raised me that I have to accept sexist/disablist/racism or discriminatory speeches and comments from him (or anyone), the rest of my (white) family also love to comment on “the Muslims” or “black people”.
It’s unsuferable. And it doesn’t matter how old they are, where those comments are taking place, I grew up hearing this crap (which has a mixed race gay person made it incredibly hard) and regardless of background, kids should be able and encouraged to grow up in an environment where parents don’t need to use slurs or other “non-politically” correct comments about other people just because they used to be able to and think it’s okay because they don’t think they are being racist/homophobic.
It sucks to grow up in an environment where casual racism or casual homophobia and random slurs are seen as appropriate and even defendable. Now if someone say something inappropriate “because it’s their right” then I excerse my right to vocally oppose to them and their views and tell them what I think, regardless of hierarchy. If you think kids deserve a whopping for stating their mind and swear when parents obviously don’t mind using insults those to describe others themselves then you are part of the issue. Ideally people would not need to use slurs or to insult others to drive a point but it looks like OP’s husband probably have an history of feeling a certain way towards “political correctness” and I am sure he is known to make a point to not ever be PC which if you don’t have a dad like that you cannot fully grasp how infuriating it is, especially in a society where people tell you that disagreeing with your parents is you being a brat and you should be able to tolerate this.
I had a teacher in high school who in class showed a picture of kids of different races (it was an ad) and randomly said “and you can see there are two niggers in the back.” Everybody gasped, and the teacher tried to justify herself saying she wasn’t being racist just used to the word and didn’t mean anything by it.
There was outraged and despite her being our teacher we all told her to get educated and learn why the word nigger is not ever okay to use to describe black or mixed-African individuals. It was said in French too which is even more weird because the word Nigger in French was only ever used during slavery, it’s never ever used by black people in their daily life like in the US, never ever used in songs it’s just never been reclaimed by the black community like the word did in the US or like the word queer got reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ community, and since she was in her 30’s there was no way she would have casually learned the word and heard it on a regular basis or ever in a context where it was seen as appropriate and wildly used unless she grew up in a fairly racist and archaic environment. Honestly it could have been seen as teenagers getting angsty about everything but hearing people who look like you referee as under-race black slur is heart-chattering especially by people who have authority over you (teachers/parents).
I don’t think kids should have to put up with hearing insults that might refer to them/their friends/or others and be told not to speak back.