Army Warrant Officer Aaron Walsh was a decorated Apache helicopter pilot. While deployed to an overseas base far from his family, he started to play slot machines at a club on base. Slots (technically video lottery terminals) are computer-controlled gambling devices that many say are programmed to induce addiction — they are often called the crack cocaine of gambling, and Aaron quickly succumbed.
Over the coming months, he would eventually lose not just a few paychecks, but his home, his family and then his life. Aaron Walsh died from wounds inflicted by a very different kind of enemy: His gambling addiction led him to take his own life. Today a bill sits before Congress that bears his name to eliminate slots from military bases worldwide. Suicide rates for gambling addicts are the highest of any addiction. Some studies say that one in five compulsive gamblers will attempt it. For the loved ones of those lost in this way, the sadness is almost unbearable.
Today, all across Maryland, pastors will be sharing with their congregations “A Biblical Response to State-Sponsored Gambling.”
The idea for this unified effort started when some of my pastor friends and I were talking over lunch a few months ago. We were brainstorming how we could protect our community from predators who would seek to profit from our poorest and weakest citizens.
Aaron Walsh’s story has gripped our hearts because we have provided care to folks who have lost loved ones to suicide. We decided to speak with one voice about the dangers of state-sponsored gambling. As friends told friends, a sort of movement was born — and today, dozens of pastors will speak from their pulpits all across the state.
Most people expect religious leaders to oppose gambling — but my gut tells me few understand why we do, and especially why we are so appalled that our state government would sponsor it.
In the Bible, King Solomon wrote that, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God” (Proverbs 14:31).
As Examiner readers know, this November the people of Maryland are being asked to change our state constitution through Referendum Question 2 to allow large, out-of-state gambling operations to move into five locations in Maryland to open slot machine casinos, ostensibly to help fund public education.
While the wording of the referendum was assembled by a former gambling industry lobbyist who is now a state officeholder, we think a more forthright restatement of the proposal would be “Do you support the state’s effort to use deceptive tactics to manipulate its poorest citizens into losing large amounts of money so that elected leaders can avoid decisions that require political courage?”
With the explosion of gambling across our nation, we have read headline after headline about gambling’s tragic aftermath: single moms abandoning their children in their cars while they played slots; domestic violence and homicide; and bankruptcies, embezzlement and other crimes that are too numerous to count.
In West Virginia’s Jefferson County, home to Charles Town Races and Slots, the state police reported an 83 percent increase in crime from 2004 to 2006. My pastoral friends and I committed to one another that we would do what we could to protect our community from these dangers.
So, allow me to return to King Solomon. Exploiting anyone for personal gain is immoral — but to allow our government to enact policies that target the poor is surely far beneath the goodwill of the people of Maryland. It is the poor who suffer from state-sponsored gambling — and not just from slot machines, but from the proliferation of lotteries as well. Nationally, households with incomes under $13,000 spend, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets. Lotteries, like slots, are designed to prey on the unfulfilled dreams of the poor and the hopeless. As the wealthiest state in the nation, Maryland can do much, much better than that.
Today, in churches of many denominations, pastors are standing before their congregations to issue a higher calling from another of the Proverbs: “Open your mouth, judge righteously, And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.”
