While many outsiders consider the strides being made towards a more progressive society in Mexico’s capital — among them the legalization of civil unions for gay couples — and on the national level, a national study shows that if the country’s youth are an indicator, there is still quite a long way to go with regard to a truly equal society.

According to a survey called The National Youth Survey:

53 percent [of youths] don’t want a gay person as a neighbor. [Nearly] the same percentage rejects having to be around people with HIV and 25 percent don’t want indigenous people close by.

According to Mexico’s La Jornada, Emilio Álvarez Icaza, head of the Human Rights Commission in the Federal District, warns that the youth of the capital are becoming more and more discriminatory in their views.

“The youth of Mexico City have more discriminatory thinking and behavior, above all with the LGBT community,” he said. The ombudsman called the statistic that 55 percent of youth that live in the Federal District say that they don’t want an indigenous neighbor ‘alarming’”

.Álvarez Icaza is calling on the government to do away with what he calls the “perverse normality” of discrimination from a policy perspective, and that it assume the responsibility of protecting civil rights.

Via / La Jornada