San Antonio, Texas has a mayor. Her name is Ivy Taylor and she has an election coming up in two weeks. Earlier this month Mayor Taylor, along with nonpartisan candidate Ron Nirenberg, spoke at a public forum about nonprofit work in San Antonio. Since this was a forum filled with nonprofit groups, religion was well represented. While being asked by a woman from the Christian Coalition about what the two officials thought was the real “root level” problem of systemic poverty, Mayor Taylor took a page out of the Prosperity Gospel, and blamed the poor’s inability to find God’s love for their impoverished state.
Since you’re with the Christian Coalition, I’ll just put it out there that, to me, it’s broken people, you know? People not being in relationship with their Creator. And therefore not being in good relationship with their families and their communities, and you know, not being productive members of society. I mean, I think that’s the ultimate answer. That’s not something that I work on in my position as Mayor of the community, though I try to lead by example.
She goes on to say she believes that education is the “real equalizer.” Nirenberg leaves the “creator” out of his answer to talk about the need to spread around investment in all communities. As the San Antonio Current points out, while Taylor is a registered Democrat, her politics are very religiously conservative and anti-LGBT—having voted against a nondiscrimination ordinance in 2013 when she was a councilwoman.
In a statement sent to the Current, Taylor said that the video had been "intentionally edited to mislead viewers." However, it's hard to see how NOWcastSA's livestream video of the event could have been manipulated. The full video shows no obvious signs of editing.
"I have devoted my life to breaking the chains of generational poverty," she writes. "I’ve done so because of my faith in God and my belief in Jesus’s ministry on Earth."
You can watch Mayor Taylor talk about how God makes people poor starting at around the 1:07:45.