Texas religious leaders unite to stand against legalized video slot machines_50304
Posted: 5/03/04
Texas religious leaders unite to stand
against legalized video slot machines
By Ferrell Foster
Texas Baptist Communications
DALLAS–Leaders of the Texas religious community are standing together against a proposal that would link the funding of public education in the state to video slot machines.
Bishop Mark Herbener, interim director of the Texas Conference of Churches, said he does not know of any religious leader in the state who “thinks this is good for the moral character” of the people of Texas.
“We know of no faith group that supports this,” said Phil Strickland, director of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Herbener, Strickland and others held a news conference at the Greater Dallas Community of Churches headquarters to voice opposition to video lottery terminals. The machines are similar to slot machines, but they allow the player to access electronic versions of various casino-type games.
For every dollar gambling generates for the state, it creates $3 in costs for local communities. –CLC Director Phil Strickland |
Gov. Rick Perry has called a special session of the state legislature to craft a new way of funding public schools. His plan and others call for the addition of up to 40,000 video slot machines at racetracks and on Native American tribal lands.
“We want a solid future” for children in Texas, said BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade, “We do not want to build it on the backs of those who are most vulnerable.”
Various speakers pointed to the addictive nature of video slot machines and the resulting personal, family, economic and societal costs that follow.
“The more addicts we create,” the greater the “human toll,” said Ken Hall, president of Buckner Baptist Benevolences and the BGCT. “What does this do to our whole human services network?”
Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling in Rockford, Ill., said gambling addiction rates double within a 50-mile radius of casinos. As a result, he said, counties with casinos have a 14 percent higher bankruptcy rate and an 8 percent higher crime rate.
The proposed expansion of gambling in Texas would bring some benefits in terms of revenue generated, Strickland said, "but there are tremendous costs." For every dollar gambling generates for the state, it creates $3 in costs for local communities, he noted. "This will be a disaster for communities."
A constitutional amendment would be required to introduce video lottery terminals to Texas, and that would require a referendum on the November general election ballot.
Speakers expressed confidence Texas voters would reject such a proposal on the ballot, but they said it would not be a fair fight.
“There's no way you can begin to match the dollars” that would be used by the gambling industry, Strickland said. “They can dump literally millions and millions of dollars to tell their side of the story.”
Grey sees a danger in all of those dollars. “You can sell lies on television commercials,” he said.
Hall called on legislators to “make the hard choices” and vote against the gambling proposal. “I can't imagine any Texas Baptist looking favorably” on a politician who pushes this proposal, he said.
A Republican governor is doing much of the pushing, but Grey said the Republican Party platform is against gambling. "This has less to do with revenue (for schools) than with campaign contributions," he said.
Gambling opponents feel like they are getting “a fast shuffle off a stacked deck,” said Weston Ware, legislative director for Texans Against Gambling.
Perry not only is violating the anti-gambling platform on which he ran for office, but also is pressuring legislators to pass an omnibus bill that includes gambling expansion, he said.
Ware derided the governor's proposal as a “slots for tots plan” that uses Texas schoolchildren as pawns in a ploy to expand gambling in the state.
Managing Editor Ken Camp contributed to this report.