...domestic violence victims. Over 80% of welfare recipients were married and about that many have on the average of 1.7 children to support.
About 4 years ago, when this proposal was first floated around, I participated in a protest below the office windows of one of the legislators involved with this inane idea. We had a mock wedding with a real Lutheran minister, brides with veils and the whole bit (one of the "grooms" was also dressed as a bride, lol). We married Mr Any Guy. This was with Jennifer Dunn, a clueless neocon that, thankfully is no longer a legislator.
One of the "brides" had endured 17 years of domestic abuse, had 5 children she was forced to have at home because her husband would not allow her to go to the hospital (they might notice the bruises she had and the indications of rape she endured clear up to the day of childbirth). She was isolated from her family all that time, so she had nobody. Well one day, he beat her so badly she "died" and wound up in the hospital where the whole thing unraveled. By the time she participated in the "wedding" her husband was in prison for attempted murder, child abuse, and assault.
We "brides" all of us low income moms, were taken into Dunn's office. When the woman above asked Dunn what she was supposed to do with a husband who had almost killed her, Dunn's response was that, "there would be counseling" for that. The expectation was that somehow the marriage should be repaired!
We tried to say the $800,000,000 could be put to much better use: like education for moms so they can find jobs with livable wages (they are not allowed to go to school even for a GED), childcare, housing, food stamp increase(which provides less than $1.20 per meal per person per day), but of course they do not care about those essential needs. It is all about marriage ~ and faith-based money going into the coffers of Bu$h christo-fascists.
I am a member of Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition (
http://www.wroc.org ). In Wisconsin, where Warfare DEformed has its roots, Welfare rights people there have unearthed the information that almost 2 BILLION dollars has gone missing there and nobody knows where it went. They found that of all the money that came in from the feds and the state, only
13% actually gets to the families that need it (the state claims that it is really 33%, but even if thatwere true, that is pitiful). In Philadelphia, they have uncovered such practices as a YWCA childcare program using over $80,000.00 to give themselves a lavish party with money that would have provided many families with actual childcare. They had been selective, punitive, and stingy to moms actually needing childcare, many who were denied and treated horribly. It was so embarrassing, that the agency gave back to the government over a million dollars. Texas is a disaster with their poverty rate going out the roof since Welfare DEformed, it goes on and on.
This marriage thing is a ploy to give to religious based agencies money who can discriminate and withhold services if they choose. They are not monitored as to where this money goes, but the truth is, not much of it makes it into the hands of the people who need it.
The Kensington Welfare Warriors call these agencies and the governmental people who mete out the money as "poverty pimps." A good term IMO.
Your tax dollars at work and are they going to blame the moms for the apartment building burning down when she is forced to leave small children at home go to her three jobs?
My 2 cents
Cat In Seattle
P.S. WROC is always struggling. Please consider going to the website I gave and contributing to them or to a local welfare rights non-profit in your area. It is desperately needed. They are a 501 C , so are tax deductible.
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