A new study has revealed how people view couples and their "love relationship" differently on the basis of their sexual orientation.
Long Doan, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at IU Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences, said that ask when asked someone about they thought of same-sex couples or of straight couples, they usually had different images in mind for the same-sex and straight couples.
The findings suggested that people seem to think of loving relationships in a hierarchy, with heterosexual couples being the most "in love," followed by lesbian couples and then gay couples. Additionally, how "in love" a participant understood the couple to be led them to decide how many informal or formal rights they might deserve as a couple, from holding hands in public to having the right to marry.
Doan further added that there's a lot of focus on portraying gay couples as just as loving as straight couples, so this should be an effective approach because it seemed that people are swayed by the notion of love and if this could somehow convince people that gay couples are just as loving, then it seemed more likely that the movement would gain more support.
