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Raising the stakes They have differing beliefs, varying approaches to guiding their members and sometimes major blind spots in their understanding of each other. But if there is one subject that brings Hawaii's diverse faith community into alignment with each other, it is legalizing gambling.
Hawaii's diverse religions unite
in a campaign to keep gambling illegalBy Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.comLeaders from Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and other churches are participants in a coalition mobilizing this month to combat yet another major lobbying effort by mainland gambling interests here to persuade state lawmakers that legalizing gambling will solve economic woes.
"Liberals and conservatives can fight side by side on this one," Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, told a Wednesday gathering of representatives of 25 churches. "You can focus on social issues not necessarily on religious beliefs," said the Methodist minister whose crusade began 10 years ago when he worked to head off Mississippi riverboat gambling from coming ashore in the Illinois town where he was a pastor.
"You need to show that the winds are continuing to blow against gambling," said Grey, who is in Hawaii for two weeks to help energize the local opposition forces. He has spoken to several church groups and will speak at public meetings tomorrow at noon at the Church of the Crossroads, 1212 University Ave., and at 7:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu, 1822 Keeaumoku St.
"We are in a crisis state," said Dorothy Bobilin, who heads the volunteer-staffed and minimally funded Hawaii Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. She told coalition members that "It's different this year. Legislators who were with us are beginning to change their minds."
"There's a lot of folks you wouldn't see united in other issues, this is one they agree on," said O.W. Efurd, executive director for the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention. "We believe gambling produces more social ills than any economic outcome is worth. It doesn't communicate a correct work ethic."
"Governments are reluctant to document the bad effects of their actions. It's their dirty little secret." Tom Grey
National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling
"There is historical and anecdotal evidence that casino gambling is accompanied by vice and social evils." Francis X. DiLorenzo
Hawaii Catholic bishop
Colin White, Honolulu West Stake president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said "Legalized gambling is based on a wrong principle, that you can get something for nothing. Society as a whole cannot prosper on that premise."
Grey spoke Thursday night to a Honolulu meeting of local Mormon church leaders. White said the anti-gambling effort, directed at educating church members and the lawmakers who represent them, will be spread through the network of local wards.
The comments by Efurd and White were typical of the positions of local faith organizations which are more likely to cite social concerns rather than theological bases for their opposition to gambling.
Gambling is "not considered morally wrong in itself," said Hawaii Catholic Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, "but it may become morally wrong when it interferes with one's other duties or responsibilities."
Efurd said: "The basic idea of a day's work for fair pay rather than something for nothing is an ethical issue. It has been pretty well demonstrated in areas where gambling is legal that the social issues, the costs, far offset any benefits. In a state where the economy is down, we feel gambling is a poor solution. In the long run, it will end up costing more and causing more problems."
One of the strongest indictments of the activity which some people consider harmless entertainment is to be found in the Book of Discipline of the international organization of the United Methodist Church. It states:
"Gambling is a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic and spiritual life, and destructive of good government. As an act of faith and concern, Christians should abstain from gambling and should strive to minister to those victimized by the practice. The church should promote standards and personal lifestyles that would make unnecessary and undesirable the resort to commercial gambling, including public lotteries, as a recreation, as an escape or as a means of producing public revenue or funds for support of charities or government."
The Rev. Barbara Ripple, superintendent of the Hawaii district of the United Methodist Church, said the stand against gambling is "something we've had for a long time.
"It's not that I don't want folks to have fun," said Ripple. "As a pastor, I see the social work demands on society for the people who lose money and have to get assistance from church or government. The part that really gets me is that people who are making billions off this couldn't care less about poor folks who are paying their pennies and dimes."
DiLorenzo, in a written statement last year, advised island Catholics that "People are entitled to dispose of their own property as they will, so long as in doing so they do not render themselves incapable of fulfilling duties expected by reason of justice or charity.
"There is historical and anecdotal evidence that casino gambling is accompanied by vice and social evils," said DiLorenzo. "The impact of casino or riverboat gambling on low and moderate income families and individuals; on those for whom gambling becomes a compulsive behavior; on neighborhoods, housing patterns and the homeless; and on public morality in general are all concerns which must be considered."
Grey said the national coalition last year worked in 20 states that "voted against going further." Hawaii is one of only three states with no form of legalized commercial gambling, but the fight continues in others which still have limitations such as lotteries but no casinos, or restrictions on where casinos are allowed.
The widespread economic downturn since the Sept. 11 terrorism has led the industry "to re-energize their quest to spread legalized gambling. Shame on them," Grey said.
Hawaii's reputation as a safe, mellow, environmentally pleasant place to visit would benefit the Atlantic City and Detroit gambling industry nationally, he said. "If they can take Hawaii, you will be their poster child for how good gambling is." Grey urged anti-gambling advocates not to be lured by the proposal to make it a ballot question, which would pit their sparse resources against the big bucks of industry advocates for the next nine months.
He said it is hard to come up with research that shows negative social impacts in places where gambling was legalized. "Governments are reluctant to document the bad effects of their actions, it's their dirty little secret."
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