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tintory ( tintory@lemm.ee )  to Politics · 3 years ago

Utah Makes Welfare So Hard to Get, Some Feel They Must Join the LDS Church to Get Aid

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Utah Makes Welfare So Hard to Get, Some Feel They Must Join the LDS Church to Get Aid

www.propublica.org

tintory ( tintory@lemm.ee )  to Politics · 3 years ago
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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.
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  • matchphoenix ( matchphoenix@feddit.uk ) 
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    3 years ago

    If people need to rely on the church for food, the state has failed.

  • Jo Miran ( JoMiran@lemmy.ml ) 
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    3 years ago

    “That’s not a bug it’s a feature.” – LDS

    • UnfortunateTwist ( UnfortunateTwist@beehaw.org ) 
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      3 years ago

      Utah and LDS

      Pam: they’re the same picture

    • Hhffggshn ( Hhffggshn@lemmy.ca ) 
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      3 years ago

      “now give us 10% of your income.”

  • Jaysyn ( Jaysyn@kbin.social ) 
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    3 years ago

    If you think that isn’t by design, you’re a fool.

  • Square Singer ( squaresinger@feddit.de ) 
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    3 years ago

    I don’t have an issue with the fact that the church decides whom they help.

    But that the state has so little in the way of social security that they instead have to forward people to a church instead, that’s crazy.

    3rd world country.

    • NattyNatty2x4 ( NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) 
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      3 years ago

      The LDS essentially owns the state of Utah, this issue is by design

      • Captain_Shakespeare ( Captain_Shakespeare@reddthat.com ) 
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        3 years ago

        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.

    • liv ( liv@beehaw.org ) 
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      3 years ago

      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.

      • pbjamm ( pbjamm@beehaw.org ) 
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        3 years ago

        us$10k/year

        I doubt there is anywhere in the US where that is an adequate amount to pay for food and shelter. That is monstrous.

  • liv ( liv@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    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.

  • Spacemanspliff ( Spacemanspliff@midwest.social ) 
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    3 years ago

    So the system is working as intended.

  • TheBurlapBandit ( TheBurlapBandit@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    Did they make that church as evil looking as possible on purpose? Looks like the legion of fucking doom.

  • PotentiallyAnApricot ( PotentiallyAnApricot@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    deleted by creator

    • Asymptote ( Asymptote@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
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      3 years ago

      Religious people try to do good

      … And you took that personally.

      • towerful ( towerful@beehaw.org ) 
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        3 years ago

        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.

        Soinds like coercion

        • Asymptote ( Asymptote@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
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          3 years ago

          Bellamy, desperate for help, had tried applying for cash assistance from the state of Utah. But she’d been denied for not being low-income enough

          So she tried a different avenue that was not the state.

          That different avenue might be coercive and have strict demands on who can receive money and for what, but it’s not tax payer money.

          • t3rmit3 ( t3rmit3@beehaw.org ) 
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            3 years ago

            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.

  • Zev ( Zevlen@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    deleted by creator

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