Broad Coalition of Religious Leaders Unite Against Gambling

Focus on the Family
Monday, 6 May 2002

Over 220 of the Nation's Spiritual Leaders Call for Congress to Address "Moral and Cultural Cancer"

More than 220 of the nation's foremost religious leaders issued an open letter today to President Bush and Congress, urging them to address the growing devastation that legalized gambling has wrought on American families and communities. The letter, published in Roll Call magazine, is an unprecedented outcry from leaders of diverse religious faiths who have been left to pick up the pieces of lives ripped apart by gambling.

"As a priest, I have had extensive experience with people whose lives are profoundly disordered because of an addiction to gambling," explained Father Richard John Neuhaus, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Life and one of the clergy who signed the letter. "As a society, we should not be encouraging those who prey on such weaknesses."

Research shows that more than 15 million Americans are problem or pathological gamblers. In 1999, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that gambling has caused or contributed to more than 2 million divorces in recent years. In addition to increased domestic violence and child abuse among individual families, whole communities also are victimized by bankruptcies, crime and even suicide caused by gambling addiction.

"Sociological studies prove that gambling has a debilitating effect on society," said Tony Campolo, Ph.D., president of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education. "Any justification of legitimized gambling on the grounds that it helps subsidize such services as care for the elderly or education ignores the fact that it is the least affluent that tend to gamble, making the poor pay for what we all should support."

State-run lotteries are particularly notorious for preying on those with limited financial resources. The National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that individuals earning less than $10,000 per year spend more on lottery tickets than those in any other income group.

Dr. Tony Evans, president of The Urban Alternative and Senior Pastor of the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, sees cultural ramifications in America's acceptance of gambling.

"When a culture must depend on gambling to address its financial need, it has demonstrated that it has lost faith in the productivity of its citizenry," he said. "It is the ultimate insult of leaders toward those they have been elected to represent."

The letter and signatures can be seen in their entirety at: www.citizenlink.org Today's Roll Call magazine ad is attached.

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