While heterosexual Americans increasingly support legal rights for same-sex couples, new evidence reveals they still aren't cool with gay PDA.

According to a survey that will appear in the December issue of the American Sociological Review, 95% of heterosexuals approved of straight couples kissing in public, while only 55% of heterosexuals approved of gay men kissing in public.

"We had civil rights laws long before we had positive attitudes toward ethnic minorities," said Long Doan, the author of the report, in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Interestingly, some gays and lesbians in the survey approved straight PDA, but not same-sex PDA. This is likely due to a concern for safety in the community, Doan told LiveScience. The idea is that some gays and lesbians fear that PDA among same-sex couples could lead to harassment.

Additionally, 72% of heterosexuals approved of lesbians kissing in public. That stat is reminiscent of a survey that showed newspapers consistently used photos of women marrying, not men marrying, when covering legalized same sex marriage.

Doan told LiveScience that this might indicate that we should not always group together gays and lesbians when analyzing public perception of same-sex couples.

As we recently reported about marijuana, just because something is legalized does not mean it's normalized. It looks like we still have a long way to go toward full LGBT acceptance.