A Prudent Fold

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - March 28, 2008

Holy Week turned out to be a very good week on Beacon Hill.

Legislators in the Joint Judiciary Committee effectively killed several bills that would have created even more chaos with regard to the institution of marriage and the culture needed to support strong families. As Gail Besse's front page article documents, one would have officially redefined marriage by statute to be a wife-less or husband-less institution, codifying the Supreme Judicial Court's 2003 judicial imposition. Another would have allowed out-of-state same-sex couples legally to marry in Massachusetts and exported legal challenges to marriage to all fifty states. A third would have eliminated state anti-sodomy laws and eliminated public gay cruising areas from police control. A fourth would have banned all abortion restrictions. A fifth, the Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill, would have legalized public nudity, indecent exposure and public sexual activity, made all public bathrooms in the Commonwealth effectively co-ed, and made it a hate crime to criticize gender-switching behavior. The proponents of these bills were trying to get them passed quickly and quietly, but the concerted grass roots efforts of citizens from across the Commonwealth bombarded legislators' offices with phone calls, faxes and emails, effectively persuading lawmakers that it was in their own and the Commonwealth's best interest to defeat these bills. After several years of significant moral erosion coming from the state capitol, this was a very hopeful sign.

The victory that garnered the most attention, however, was the March 20 overwhelming defeat by the House of Representatives of Governor Patrick's proposal to allow development of three mega-casinos. As we have stated repeatedly in these pages, with gambling, the house always wins. There are far more losers than winners at a casino, and likewise our commonwealth will lose far more than we gain in increasing gambling in our state.

The risks of increased gambling — and why Governor Patrick's proposal was rightly defeated — were concisely summarized by Edward Saunders, the executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, in his testimony against the bill. He relied on the data and conclusions of the largest and most well-respected study ever done on the pluses and minuses of legalized gambling — research of which every citizen should be aware.

"In 1999," Saunders stated, "the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, created by Congress to investigate the gambling industry, and made up of gambling supporters and opponents, concluded that 'there is a need for a 'pause' in the growth of gambling,' after noting that gambling's 'rapid growth . . . begs a host of questions' that have not been adequately considered. The critical concerns identified by the Commission included whether '[gambling's] benefits outweigh its costs,' whether it 'will sap the very citizens it is intended to help,' whether it will 'raise or lower crime rates,' and whether 'more gambling [will] automatically mean more problem and pathological gambling'? The Commission observed that '[n]o one has definitive answers to these and other questions about gambling, least of all our policymakers, who are now caught short and, in some cases, may be flying blind as they attempt to formulate rational, informed gambling policies.'

"After completing what remains the most comprehensive and unbiased research to date, the Commission concluded that gambling, whatever its benefits, came with 'undeniable and significant costs.' For example, the Commission found that economic benefits from casinos were generally limited to their immediate vicinity while the social costs tended to be diffused throughout a broader geographic region. The Commission also 'heard repeated testimony of desperate gamblers committing illegal acts to finance their problem and pathological gambling." The Commission's own research 'suggest[ed] that a relationship may exist between gambling activity and the commission of a crime,' determined that 'people within communities that host legalized gambling believe crime rates are up,' which the Commission found 'troubling and demand[ed] greater research,' and 'found wide-spread perception among community leaders that indebtedness tends to increase with legalized gambling, as does youth crime, forgery and credit card theft, domestic violence, child neglect, problem gambling, and alcohol and drug offenses.'

"Further, 'the Commission likewise heard abundant testimony and evidence that compulsive gambling introduces a greatly heightened level of stress and tension into marriages and families, often culminating in divorces and other manifestations of familial disharmony.' The Commission discovered that '[i]ndividuals with gambling problems seem to constitute a higher percentage of the homeless population' and that '[c]hildren of compulsive gamblers are often prone to suffer abuse, as well as neglect, as a result of parental problem or pathological gambling.' Of great interest to the Massachusetts debate, 'It was brought to the Commission's attention that cases of parents leaving their children in the Foxwoods casino parking lot became so commonplace that Foxwoods management posted signs warning that such incidents would be reported to the police.'"

Saunders noted that even Governor Patrick admitted last September that "increases in drug and alcohol abuse, personal bankruptcy and even domestic violence" have been documented as a result of gambling, and "the impact on an affected individual or families can be devastating." Saunders commented that the Governor "thus appears to accept the social problems associated with casino gambling as a 'cost of doing business' by proposing to set aside some of the Commonwealth's casino income for treatment." He added, however, that that's not "good government" or "good economic policy." Good government "should promote the common good with the best interests of all citizens in mind" and good economics should not seek to "increase the Commonwealth's income at a cost that involves the personal well-being of its citizens." By authorizing casino gambling, he concluded, "the Commonwealth would be creating a new population of addicted gamblers. The harm will reach far beyond individual gamblers by affecting their spouses, children, dependents, employers and the community in which they live."

For all those reasons, Catholic citizens should continue to work hard to prevent the harm that would come to the common good from an expansion of legalized gambling. Casino proponents have said that they have lost a battle, but the war is far from over and they sense that, with financial pressures in the Commonwealth, they will inevitably prevail. They point to efforts underway to expand gambling by introducing slot machines at Massachusetts race tracks as well as to the possibility that the Wampanoag Tribe would seek to open a Class II high stakes Bingo Hall in Middleborough without state approval.

For that reason, the educational campaign against gambling expansion needs to expand as well. As Douglas Bailey, executive director of Casinos No!, noted in a public statement, "The more people learn about the casino industry and the history of casinos in other states, the prospect becomes less and less palatable.… We think that if the debate went on longer, you would eventually see lopsided opposition by the general public."

108-46 in the House of Representatives is a good start.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.