Groups Unite to Combat the Spread of Gambling

In a rare show of unity on a public policy issue, the liberal National Council of Churches and the conservative Christian Coalition said this week they will work together to try to stop the spread of legal gambling in the United States.

“When the Christian Coalition and the National Council of Churches join together on an issue, that’s remarkable,” said Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition.

Reed spoke at a news conference Wednesday to announce the opening of a Washington office of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling.

He was joined by the Rev. Tom Grey, a United Methodist minister and executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling; Mary Cooper, associate director of the National Council of Churches’ Washington office; and representatives of the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The new Washington office, to be headed by Grey, is an expansion of a modest effort he began in Chicago. He called the interfaith effort a sign that the nation’s religious community is ready to take the offensive against the gambling industry.

Some form of gambling is legal in all but two states--Utah and Hawaii. In 1992, $329 billion was legally wagered in the nation, according to proponents and opponents of legalized gambling. The figure includes state-sponsored lotteries.

Between 1989 and 1994, 19 states legalized gambling casinos and 10 states legalized video slot or poker machines at racetracks and bars.

Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., president of the American Gaming Assn., a Washington-based trade association of large casino operators, said he was not surprised at the opening of the interfaith office.

“Our attitude is that people who don’t agree with us have the right to organize and pursue their agenda,” Fahrenkopf said.

“If they want to say that gaming is immoral, that’s fine and I respect them for that. But I resent it when [Grey] and others point their fingers at me and the eight of 10 Americans who don’t believe that,” Fahrenkopf said.

At the top of the anti-gambling effort’s priorities, Grey said, is establishment of a national commission to investigate legalized gambling’s economic impact on cities, its alleged ties to organized crime and the political influence the gambling industry wields through campaign contributions.

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Legislation to create the commission has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and in the Senate by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.). President Clinton has voiced support for the idea.

Fahrenkopf said his group opposes the bill creating the federal commission, as it is presently drafted.

“The industry has nothing to fear from an unbiased . . . look at the industry, but the bill presupposes that the commission will propose federal laws to regulate gaming,” he said. “You’re not going to get one federal envelope that fits every state.”

At the news conference, gambling opponents promised to seek passage of the bill creating the federal commission and rally grass-roots members to oppose the expansion of gambling at local and state levels.

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‘It is our view that gambling in any form contributes nothing positive to society,” the National Council of Churches’ Cooper said. “It offers no services, creates nothing of value and does not improve the lives of those who participate.”

Reed was even stronger.

“We believe gambling is a cancer on the American body politic,” he said. “It is stealing food from the mouths of children . . . [and] turning wives into widows.”

Elenora Ivory Giddings, in voicing the support of Presbyterian Church (USA) for the anti-gambling coalition, cited a July 1995 statement of the church charging that legalized gambling “has negatively affected the overall quality of life and has cost billions of dollars in communities and entire states.”

The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the United Methodist Church’s Board of Church and Society, told the news conference that his denomination “has been adamantly opposed to gambling” since Methodism’s founding.

In praising the launching of the national office, Fassett said, “the churches are the likely center for this” anti-gambling drive.