Newspaper Columns by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
My money is on the moral questions
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall
September, 2005I’m not opposed to gambling as an amusement. I occasionally buy a lottery ticket, and I permit raffles in the churches under my jurisdiction.
When I recently expressed concerns about casinos in the south side of Bethlehem, however, where I spend most of my time and have some understanding of the neighborhood, the knee-jerk response from a real estate investor was, “Bishop, you can’t impose your religious beliefs on others.”
Besides noting the sleaziness of poisoning the well of discourse with decayed red herrings, I want to make two points.
The first is Democracy 101. In our system the state may not set up an official religion. I’m for that. My own religious group was relentlessly persecuted with state connivance for more than a century in Connecticut and other parts of New England.
Nonetheless, nothing in our system prevents anyone from arguing for their principles, whether those principles come from ancient texts, gold tablets in Elmira, Chairman Mao, or Adam Smith.
Though I do not share the position of the majority of religious people in the United States when it comes to reproduction and sexuality, I would not wish to live in a country where their voices were stifled.
I do not like our country’s leadership to be enmeshed with the religious right, but they are allowed to be and I have to live with that.
Secondly, serious questions that raise moral issues by no means sectarian remain to be asked about proposals for slots parlors on the south side of my town. Answering them is imperative for anyone whose moral sensibility is located this side of Pennsylvania’s great Robber Barons of the 1800s.
What happens to the neighborhoods of the relatively defenseless blue collar or poor citizens? Should columnists, politicians, and investors be the loudest voices in making decisions about neighborhoods they do not inhabit?
Atlantic City has been dismissed from discussion with blithe promises that those mistakes will not be repeated and that this situation is different. Do we not have the right to see the numbers and read the contracts?
Why does the first big chunk of money go to Harrisburg, not the city that must provide the services? Will $10 million even cover the cost of services incurred by the city? (Research the economics of the gambling industry. Ten million is a fly speck on their balance sheets.)
These are moral questions.
Social services, especially those not funded by taxes, will surely be stretched. The operators of two soup kitchens assure me that they will have to close in the face of the load that casinos will bring. The ability to feed the hungry is a moral question for people of every or no religious persuasion.
Is the whole truth being told about touted new jobs? Has the gambling industry ever hired local people in great numbers for more than relatively menial jobs? Show us the written commitments to train and hire southside residents for the significant jobs.
Should Northeast Pennsylvania once again be raped by outside interests as it was during much of its mining history? The owners and other principal investors in the proposed gambling parlors live far away. Can we reasonably expect them to commit to a community in the way the former occupants of the site did?
Would less harm be done by locating a gambling center -- and the trade in drugs and sex that nobody denies it will bring -- away from a neighborhood and its children. There are other places in Northampton County that would be easier to get to and much more insulated from neighborhoods that include families.
It is legitimate to ask whether the motives of ambitious young politicians have been scrutinized. The peril of small cities is that they often serve as stepping stones for those hoping for more in their careers. We have a right to some assurance that no thralldom to the governor’s wishes clouds anyone’s objectivity.
Aren’t these all moral questions?
It may well be that they can be answered, perhaps splendidly, by the advocates of the southside project and that not even the already dense traffic patterns of the area will be changed.
Those answers will never be forthcoming, however, if questions cannot be asked also by people who happen to believe in God.
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