Davtrav,

I think we're probably on the same page.  I don't think it's acceptable to use a sacred space to "get a thrill" and I CERTAINLY don't think it's acceptable to disrespect/lean on/vandalize/play games with people's monuments.  I think I was coming at it from a different direction than you probably because I was raised by my parents to show respect for others and their property in everything I do so there wasn't that immediate separation in my mind from "what is proper use" and "what is improper use".  It was more a separation of "people who act responsibly" and "people who don't get it anyway and shouldn't be allowed out in public".

In paranormal work it's implied (although not always understood, especially by people who don't get the concept of respect in the first place) that everything should be done with the utmost discretion and respect.  I would never approve of someone making "it a circus out of the place" and do encourage in every possible situation that people don't step directly on the graves (you can usually see where they are but not always).

Cemeteries ARE places for personal reflection and one's private grief.  They are also generally thought of as public parks (even though they're not) unless they're extremely small for one specific family's members.  Why is it disrespectful for someone to go to a cemetery without having a goal of visiting a family member or doing research on a specific person?  I have loved going to cemeteries my entire life.  I generally take a trowel and some gloves and wander around looking at how people have chosen to remember their loved ones, feeling sorry for those who can't afford a decent stone or monument, cleaning neglected stones and monuments and working in a small way to record this particular part of history.  Sometimes it's apparent that I'm the first person who's really thought about  the person in the grave for a hundred years or more.  How is it disrespectful that I also bring minimal equipment and do a little paranormal research along with it?  Tons of people go jogging in cemeteries or take their walks through cemeteries and occasionally (hardly ever in the US but all the time when I'm in cemeteries in other countries) sit and eat their lunch in cemeteries having a quiet little picnic.

There are some hauntings in graveyards.  The most tragic are when someone's lost a spouse and continues to sit by the grave with the beloved long after the remaining spouse has passed him/herself and the spouse wants nothing more than the left-behind to be at Home so they can enjoy one another again.

With that said, I do think graveyards are pretty much the least likely places to be haunted.  It's rare there's anything or anyone in a cemetery.  

I think they're a good place to go for beginning investigators, though (and who knows, they might get lucky).  It's quiet and often out of the way.  Not a lot of living people are wandering through so there's plenty of solitude to test out equipment, test out procedures and figure out what they want to go into a "real" investigation.  There's also the potential for a lot of practice listening to sound recordings and learning how sensitive the mic is and how to discern background noise from true potential EVP.  Same goes for videography and photography... lots of practice looking at bugs and patterns that appear to have faces but are really  just tricks of lighting or whatever.

While there may be an occasional cemetery that might be haunted, I think that would be the last place a spirit would hang out at (least I wouldn't).  I love to visit graveyards, just wander around look at the stones and add to my collection of the unusual and the artwork that is on the older stones.

The one down the road from me is a very peaceful place, and I know a lot of the people there, talked to them in real life, visited their homes, played with their children (a few of them I went to school with).  In fact it's where I want to go, already have the spot picked out, you get off the road, down a little hill and back up another, and I hope it's raining like hell, and the pallberares slip and slide. 

In  all my years I have only found one that made me uncomfortable, that one was where some idiots had torn the place up, knocked over stones and even tried to dig into a grave or two.  I had the feeling that I was being watched.......