01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, June 19, 2004

Uncle Harry was a gambler. Not the glamorous outlaw romanticized in country song and film that always wins, but the kind preyed upon, prone to losing his paycheck. Married to my dad's sister, he was a steelworker and a mild-tempered father of five. Walking home from work, he would stop in the bars lining the street outside the mill. After a few beers and poker games and playing what were then illegal "numbers," my aunt, of necessity, was often forced to rely on her two brothers to pay for food and rent.

In the days before gambling was legal, certain families ran illegal rackets, making small fortunes with which to educate their children into decent work. Everyone knew who these families were and they were not considered respectable. Gambling was seedy and sick and only for high rollers who could afford to lose in Vegas, certainly never an equal opportunity part of small-town life. There was no confusion in Protestant ranks about the ethics of gambling either.

Growing up in this atmosphere, I am still stunned by those little balls popping up out of machines right there on TV to announce the day's "numbers" in front of God and everybody. That which was once hidden has come to light. But instead of sounding an alarm, elected officials have steadily taken over this shadowy business and introduced more opportunities to gamble. People in state government placed their imprimatur on games of chance, making them legal, but hardly more respectable.

Through Lottery Commission advertising, people who can least afford it are convinced that they are having fun while losing their money. The state should be ashamed of itself for preying on people and should take a pledge to stop advertising gambling, as it has forbidden others to push cigarettes and alcohol. It is not acceptable for those in public office, whose reason for being is to promote the common good, to take advantage of human weakness and unrealistic dreams of glory.

In older Anglican ethics books, private games of chance were not strictly forbidden. Small wagers on card or golf games could be wrong for some but not for others. Gambling was and is considered a bad influence on one's character and an unproductive use of money. Obviously, Christians need to ask themselves if gambling is what Jesus would have us do with our time and treasure.

Gambling behemoths have spread their plague across the land. Before native Americans were used by these "businesses," the church made strong statements about the danger of casinos and any large-scale public gambling. Now fearful of being considered racist, it soft-pedals its objections to Indian-sponsored casinos, for fear of offending them. Sloppy, whiny ethical thinking concludes: "Well, we should let them have casinos to make up for what we did to them." Anyone's grandmother worth her salt could set us straight if we would just listen to Wisdom: "Two wrongs don't make a right."

It's pathetic and morally bankrupt to permit the gambling industry to inflict addiction, business failures, crimes and escalating costs for police and social services upon the neighborhood and call it justice and the people's choice.

As a giant casino looms on Rhode Island's horizon, elected officials should take on the grown-up mantle of decision-making and exercise the responsibility to which they swore an oath when citizens called them to serve. This means saying no to a referendum on casino gambling, else millions from Harrah's flood the state to convince us that their casino is in our best interests. Governor Carcieri rightly called it snake oil medicine.

There is no such thing as easy money, not for government budgets, not for family finances. Those in government office bear the burden of setting forth our best plan for contributing to the good, to improving lives in our small Rhode Island neighborhood. A casino here means that we have abandoned hope for building prosperity on a firm foundation of economic growth. Are we such losers, such talentless, uncreative souls, that in despair, we must actually sell our neighborhood to the gambling industry's false god?

True, a local casino would make it easier for all of us, but especially folks like Uncle Harry, to multiply their losses, and we will watch money blow out of state like sand in the wind.

Casinos by their very nature cannot do holy arithmetic. We know it in our souls, do we not?

The Rev. Marsue Harris is priest-in-charge of St. George's Episcopal Church, Newport. She can be reached at stgeorgesnewport [at] earthlink.net.