Broken Relationship With God to Blame for Poverty, Mayor Says

San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor says the poverty cycle continues due to people not embracing Jesus.

“To me, it’s broken people … people not being in a relationship with their Creator, and therefore not being in a good relationship with their families and their communities. … and not being productive members of society,” Taylor said during a candidate forum recently.

But her comments that those in poverty and don’t have a relationship with Jesus are “broken” sparked major outrage.

“Rather than begin by discussing economic or educational factors that keep people in poverty, Taylor instead chose to alienate not only the non-Christian segment of her constituency, but potentially a large portion of low income San Antonio residents that identify as Christian. Only thereafter did she segue into issues that might actually affect poverty after admitting she couldn’t use her position to address that particular problem the way she’d like (that is, codifying her personal religious beliefs),” a writer for the Peacock Panache says.

Taylor says the video was edited to misrepresent her. She released the following statement: 

The video clip that surfaced on social media this weekend is a dishonest, politically motivated misrepresentation of my record on combatting poverty. It was intentionally edited to mislead viewers.

I have devoted my life to breaking the chains of generational poverty—as an urban planner, the District 2 councilwoman, and now mayor. I’ve done so because of my faith in God and my belief in Jesus’ ministry on earth. I believe we are all called on to help lift our brothers and sisters out of poverty.

The video was edited to cut out the rest of my answer—what I’ve done as mayor to help alleviate poverty in San Antonio. That includes taking on teen pregnancy and our high-school dropout rates, advocating job-training for young people who aren’t college-bound and fighting crime. {eoa}