Friday night's edition of ABC's 20/20 was one of their periodic "What Would You Do?" specials that presents average Americans reacting to different scenarios such as "You see a small child being berated and smacked around by their parents. What would you do?" or "You see a certain Democratic presidential nominee refusing to give up their ill-fated run for the White House. What would you do?" (The answer to the second is scream obscenities every time you see them on the television and pull out all of your hair.)

This time 20/20 explored what folks in Birmingham, Alabma and Verona, New Jersey would do if they saw gay couples engaging in public displays of affection. The answers ran the gamut, as did the quality of ABC's reporting. The segment got off to a rocky start as correspondent John Quiñones ridiculously intoned in the opening that you can "hardly turn on the TV anymore without seeing gay couples engaging in kissing." Oh, puh-leeze. I don't know what network John is watching, but I'd like to find out as my cable provider sure as heck isn't getting those channels.

Next up, the segment has Kaolin and James, a young gay couple (who are actors, but also happen to be boyfriends which I thought was cool of ABC to disclose) engaging in a very tame display of public display of affection. The repsonse? Glares, one comment from a man passing by to "f***ing get a room" and, believe it or not, a call to 911.

Operator: "Birmingham Police operator 9283"
Caller: "We have a couple of men sitting out on the bench that have been kissing and drooling all over each other for the past hour or so. It's not against the law, right?"
Operator: "Not to the best of my knowledge it's not."
Caller: "So there's no complaint I could make or have?"
Operator: "I imagine you could complain if you like ma'am. We can always send an officer down there."

Then the operator actually dispatches an officer who confronts the two men. Pardon my French, but "What the f***?" If the operator knew the two men weren't breaking the law, then what exactly was she doing dispatching the officer in the first place? Can yoy say intimidation? It gets better though. In the middle of the officer's confronting Kaolin and James, he gets a call on the radio telling him the city and police department have signed off on 20/20's experiment. But before the officer leaves he still admonishes the couple to stop what the perfectly legal thing they were doing.

Quiñones attempts to ask the officer about what just happened, but he won't respond and leaves. And that's where ABC leaves that. Imagine the reaction if any other minority couple were told to stop engaging in a PDA, yet a police officer told them to knock it off. I find it hard to believe that ABC would just let that go.

The rest of the segment is fairly optimistic after that (though there are still plenty of homophobes like the woman below who sanctimoniously goes on about how a lesbian couple kissing on the same bench won't be going to Heaven and how disgusting it all is.)

ABC reports that not only did they find most folks were fine with the gay PDA, but whether they conducted the experiment in "red" Alabama or "blue" New Jersey, ABC pretty much found the same reaction across the board. I certainly will say it was nice to see such a wide-range of folks being so accepting. It sure beat last year's segment about gay tolerance filmed in Las Vegas which included a man talking about how he misses the good old days when you could just get a gun and "put down" gay folks. I kid you not.

Watch the whole clip after the jump!