Straight Americans say that homosexual couples should enjoy all of the same legal rights as straight couples, but many - both gay and straight - don't approve of public displays of affection by homosexual men, Al Jazeera reported on Thursday.
The study concludes that LGBT Americans still face social stigma and isolation even though same-sex marriage is making legal strides across the country.
"Regardless of whether egalitarian values motivate individuals in the United States to confer legal rights to lesbians and gays, ideas about the moral inferiority of lesbians and gays may still guide social interactions," said the report published in the American Sociological Review.
Both straight and LGBT-identified Americans were interviewed, and about 70 percent said they supported inheritance rights for same-sex couples. About 95 percent of heterosexuals interviewed said they were accepting of straight couples that kiss on the check in public, but only 55 percent approved when a gay couple did the same. Lesbian couples got a 72 percent kissing approval rating from straight people.
Heterosexuals didn't approve of gay men talking about their intimate relationships 20 percent of the time. The study revealed that men were more disapproving of homosexual acts in public than women were.
But what may have stood out the most was homosexual respondents still disapproving of same-sex PDA. The authors agree that this thinking isn't going to help usher in change for the LGBT community, Medical Daily reported.
"A sole focus on formal rights may overlook these other potentially subtle, yet important, aspects of marginalization," the researchers explained in their report.
One way to change public opinion could be positive depictions of gay characters in pop culture, they said.
