Same-sex marriage, yes; kissing in public, no. Or so says a new study just released by the University of Indiana last week.
The first major study of its kind, the research paper which polled over 1,000 heterosexuals over a period of a year, found that while people may support legal rights for minority groups in the privacy of a voting booth, they don’t always extend the same level of acceptance out in public.
As an avalanche of legal victories in the courts across the country validates the rights of the LGBT community to marry each other (currently 32 states and the District of Columbia allow such unions), America is undergoing a major social movement the likes of which is unprecedented in the history of the country.
By comparison, in 1958, a Gallup poll taken at the time suggested that 94% of respondents disapproved of interracial marriage at the time. It took over 40 years for that opinion to shift. The social shift on same-sex marriage has been considerably quicker—less than half that time.
Yet, according to the study lead by University of Indiana sociologist Dr. Long Doan, while heterosexuals ideologically may think that gays should have the right to marriage, adoption and benefits including hospital visitation, they draw the line at public displays of affection routinely granted to straight couples.
“Support for legal benefits for gays and lesbians should not be conflated with favorable attitudes toward same-sex couples in general,” said in a statement. “We come to the conclusion that although heterosexuals may be increasingly willing to grant legal benefits to gay and lesbian couples, entrenched prejudice that takes on subtler forms may remain.”
The results from the study found that while 95% of people think that a straight couple kissing on the cheek in public is fine, just 72 percent said the same for lesbians, and 55 percent for gay men.
Worse still was the percentage that thought gay men deserved inheritance rights—69%, while 73% percent found it permissible for lesbians to have the same rights.
Doan and his co-authors chalked this discrepancy up to two possible factors. For one, they speculate it could reveal a last-ditch attempt for heterosexuals to wield some continuing power over a minority group.
“Indeed, as some forms of structural discrimination are prohibited, informal privileges might become more important as a way for dominant groups to justify inequality on more subtle grounds,” the authors wrote. In the same way people’s racism has changed from the overtness of a racial slur to the subtlety of profiling, today’s social inequalities are beginning to slip undercover.
Or perhaps the implications of the study are far simpler: straights are simply not used to seeing gay people kiss in public, and until such a time as they do, the thought of the sight makes them uncomfortable in theory.
“I think for heterosexual couples, these informal privileges are taken for granted,” Doan told Medical Daily. Across the board, straight respondents approve of straight public displays of affection. They see it, they accept it, and it has long been an acceptable form of behavior.
While those in the LBGT community often may see lesbians and gays kissing inside clubs and private venues, even they find the openly public display of physical affection to be somewhat disconcerting, if only for its rarity. Handholding seems to be less offensive, as is walking arm in arm, since these are more casual, less intimate forms of endearment.
“When people see these scenarios,” Doan said, “it’s sort of like they’re thinking why is this even something we’re asking about?” The LGBT community wants nothing less than have the very question become irrelevant. Currently, it is anything but. If anything, that’s all the gay rights movement has ever asked for: a sense of normalcy.
The research paper “Formal Rights and Informal Privileges for Same-Sex Couples: Evidence From a National Survey Experiment” was released in the American Sociological Review last week.
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