Local Pastors Condemn Congressman’s Anti-Minimum Wage Stance: ‘It’s Simply Un-Christian’
Last week, at a town hall in Tampa, Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) generated controversy after telling a constituent who’s been working fast food for 10 years that raising the minimum wage is “not right.” “If we are going to make it a living wage, who’s going to pay for it?” asked Ross.
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Rev. Russell Meyer, Executive Director of the Florida Council of Churches and a pastor with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
“As a Christian and a pastor, I’m alarmed to hear Congressman Ross’s response to a full-time worker trying to get by less than $300 a week. In a country as wealthy as ours, it’s simply un-Christian how low the minimum wage is today.”
Rev. Richard Huggins, pastor at McLeod Memorial Presbyterian Church and constituent of Rep. Ross:
“It is morally bankrupt for Congressman Ross to fight against making the minimum wage a family wage. Someone who makes a six-figure salary paid for by tax dollars has no business making the lives of his working poor constituents even harder. It is a failure of both judgment and conscience.”
Rev. Larry Rankin, former pastor with The Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church and constituent of Rep. Ross:
“Rep. Ross, stated that the minimum wage is ‘not right.’ What’s not right is that today’s minimum wage doesn’t sustain a family. Scripture tells us: ‘You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers…You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them.’”
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/04/18/3428377/dennis-ross-minimum-wage-pastors/