For information on what you can do to help stop expanded gambling, call 410-766-5562 or 410-943-3553, or go to Contact Us to send an email.

NOcasiNO Maryland
P.O. Box 26
Glen Burnie, MD 21060-0026

Maryland legislators voted 86-52 in a Nov. 2007 special session to put a slots referendum that would change the state's Constitution on the Nov. 2008 ballot. The Constitution would be amended to add 15,000 slot machines at five locations: Anne Arundel, Cecil, and Worcester Counties, City of Baltimore, and on state property at Rocky Gap Lodge and Golf Resort near Cumberland. Two of the sites are racetracks--Laurel Park in Anne Arundel and Ocean Downs in Worcester. Legislative analysts predict that $650 million a year would be generated for the state. Results of the referendum were 1,444,340 for the amendment and 1,018,047 against. Approval is still needed in the 2009 legislative session.
     
Letter from Bishop Marcus Matthews PDF Print E-mail
Written by Administrator   
Thursday, 18 October 2007 00:00

The United Methodist Church 

The Philadelphia Area Episcopal Office 

(Eastern Pennsylvania and Peninsula-Delaware Conferences) 

Bishop Marcus Matthews 

P.O. Box 820 

Valley Forge, PA 19482-0820 

(610) 666-9090, ext. 233; (800) 828-9093, ext. 233 

FAX: (610) 666-9181 

October 18, 2007 

Thank you for the opportunity to share some words from our 2004 Book of Resolutions relative to gambling. I regret not being able to do so in person. 

When asked which commandment is first of all, Jesus answered, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:29-30). Gambling feeds on human greed and invites persons to place their trust in possessions rather than in God. It represents a form of idolatry that contradicts the first commandment. Jesus continued: "The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Mark 12:31). In relating with compassion to our sisters and brothers, we are called to resist those practices and systems that exploit them and leave them impoverished and demeaned. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:9-10a: "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." 

Gambling, as a means of acquiring material gain by chance and at the neighbor's expense, is a menace to personal character and social morality. Gambling fosters greed and stimulates the fatalistic faith in chance. Organized and commercial gambling is a threat to business, breeds crime and poverty, and is destructive to the interests of good government. It encourages the belief that work is unimportant, that money can solve all our problems, and that greed is the norm for achievement. 

As United Methodists, the Church has a key role in fostering responsible government and in developing health and moral maturity that free persons from dependence on damaging social customs. We believe that gambling is a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic, and spiritual life, and destructive of good government. We work toward a world and an economy, which is free of gambling. Thank you for this opportunity to share our position on gambling. 

 

Marcus Matthews Bishop 
 

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