The united states needs to outlaw religious organizations using basic needs to coerce people in need. It’s just fundamentally violating and gross on a human level. We need a federal law separating the help that churches give to people, from their religious activities. We need a real safety net, too, but this is a specific abuse of power that needs to be addressed for what it is.
Utah’s safety net for the poor is so intertwined with the LDS Church that individual bishops often decide who receives assistance. Some deny help unless a person goes to services or gets baptized.
Utah doesn’t do more for those in need in part because a contingent of its lawmakers, the overwhelming majority of whom are Latter-day Saints themselves, assume the church is handling the poverty issue; they also are loath to raise taxes to do the state’s share, a review of Utah’s legislative history demonstrates.
“I made it so you can’t get help from them, only from me, and now I’m helping you, contingent on you doing what I tell you to. Aren’t I so nice and kind?”
This was not religious people trying to do good, this was religious people abusing legislative power to force people into their sphere of influence.
There was a time in my life where I got one meal a day for a few cents from charities.
On the weekends we had to sit through a religious sermon before they let us eat, and I will never forget how it made me feel to sit there for a full hour listening to this smug arrogant man lording it over us and telling us how he was so powerful he could materialise his body on other planets but he chooses not to because he is more enlightened than we are.
Agreed - working as intended, and it’s not just LDS. I’m in FL and churches here have been opposing publicly funded safety nets for my whole life, in favor of voluntary, often church-led, donations.
They appear to have set it up that way on purpose.
A single mother of one here is eligible for $399 a month in state assistance, and only if she has a net income of $456 a month or less.
Utah doesn’t do more for those in need in part because a contingent of its lawmakers, the overwhelming majority of whom are Latter-day Saints themselves, assume the church is handling the poverty issue; they also are loath to raise taxes to do the state’s share, a review of Utah’s legislative history demonstrates.
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