BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF
Marylanders turned out in force Oct. 20 to join church leaders and politicans in opposing legalized slot machines in the state. More than 300 people gathered at the Baptist Church in Glenarden, where bishop John R. Schol voiced his opposition to this looming danger.
The rallies were sponsored by StopSlots Maryland. A similar event will take place in Baltimore City next Friday, Oct. 26.
Bishop Schol led the stop slots rally with an impassioned, 'Follow the money!' a phrase he repeated several times. 'If you want to know something about a person, a leader, an institution, a state, an industry (gambling), follow the money,' he told the crowd of several hundred. 'What do these have in common? They follow the money instead of the Creator,' he said.
The gambling money, including slots, leads to crime and organized crime, poverty, divorce and increased costs for the state, the bishop said.
He wasn?t alone in pointing out the adverse outcomes of slot machines in Maryland and the increased costs that would ensue.
Peter Franchot, attorney general of the state of Maryland, also mentioned his concerns about the costs to the state, and especially the local communities where slots would be placed.
'The devil is at the door,' he said, 'and it?s going to be done in the dark and we won?t be there to speak out about it,' he said, referring to the called special session of the state legislature coming Oct. 29. He explained that the national Gambling Association is already in Annapolis 'writing the bill,' and 'we don?t know what?s in it.'
Franchot, like others who spoke, were leaders in the anti-slots movement when then Republican Governor Ehrlich tried unsuccessfully to get approval. This is not a partisan issue, he stressed.
Franchot pointed out that the lottery income in Maryland is well over $1 billion, but 'most of it comes from the poorest counties, Prince Georges and Baltimore City.' It?s the poorest people who 'will be paying for the programs for the wealthy,' he said.
Throughout his speech, Franchot asked a question: Are we going to let slots in Maryland? The crowd shouted 'No' over and over. At one point the sound was so loud it frightened a baby, causing it to cry. Franchot looked down beaming and said, 'That?s who we?re doing this for.'
Another person addicted to anti-slots action is Doug Schmidt, lay member from Grace UMC in Baltimore. 'I got so mad about it,' he said when he first heard a speaker five years ago in the lobbying effort against slots at that time.
'I?m a business person,' he said, who learned to speak against wrong-doing at an early age. 'Morally, my departed mother said when it?s wrong, you have to speak up.'
Gambling preys on the poor and the elderly, Schmidt continued. We have to heed Jesus? message of caring about the poor. 'It?s a hard message for middle class people to hear.'
Prince Georges County Del. Marvin Holmes expanded on the history of slot machines in southern Maryland in the 1960s and why the state got rid of slots then. 'We don?t need to recreate a broken wheel,' he said.
At the time slots were prevalent in Calvert County and the U.S. Navy requested their removal from near the Navy bases because the seamen were spending their checks on gambling instead of providing for their families. 'These new slots,' he said, are the crack cocaine of gambling, designed to keep you sitting at the machine,' even after one?s expendable income is gone.
In a flyer put out by the Collective Banking Group, (some 150 pastors from the area), which sponsored and led the P.G. County rally, it states that it takes but three to five years before a gambling addict 'runs through family savings, retirement funds and maxes out the credit cards, leaving his family broken and sometimes homeless.'
Testifying to the effects of gambling, was speaker Charles Jordan, chairman of the Deacons? Board at a Church of God in Christ in Riverdale. For 30 years from the age of 12, he said, he?d been a gambler, starting with pennies on craps games in the middle school yard. As an adult, he owed everybody in the neighborhood money that he?d 'borrowed.' Even his mother told the neighbors and relatives, 'Don?t trust my son.'
When he broke the addiction 20 years ago, he paid back his debts to as many as he could find. 'Slots is like pennies on the playground,' he said, 'slots is the beginning, and all the rest will follow.'
In a conversation with Frank Gould, conference chairman of Pensions and Health, who deals with a lot of seniors, he said that slots is a menace for seniors as well as younger people trying to get ahead in their families.
'Seniors have time on our hands,' he said. 'It?s easier to slip into (betting on slots) once started.' Socially, slot gambling may be appealing to seniors who may feel quite lonely and isolated.
However, many seniors have less income, he added, so what they spend is a bigger percentage of their income. 'They would be hurt even more.'
Added to that, the damage done to communities and the state would mean that even more would have to be spent on the social ills caused by the presence of slot machines.
The Rev. Jonathan Weaver, an AME pastor from Bowie, president of the Collective Banking Group, began and ended the hour-long rally, with a strong call to 'do our civic duty to fight the pernicious battle against slot machines.'
He encouraged the crowd to register to vote and then to vote, and said there were registration tables available in the back of the sanctuary.
'We?re here to say we don?t want slots in Maryland,' he said. 'We don?t want to see any form of gambling in Maryland (which has the lottery) and now we don?t want to add slots to the mix.'
He urged everyone to contact their state senators on Monday, Oct. 29, the day the special session opens. 'Flood the delegates and senators with e-mails and phone calls,' he said. When you send your message, 'be sure and add where you stand on slots in Maryland, and state unequivocally that you are opposed.'
'Do we want slots in Maryland?' speaker after speaker asked.
'No!' 'No!' 'No!' shouted the audience.
