The Debate over caSINos

October 3, 2005

Lost jobs, religious views clash over casinos

By Matt Apuzzo
From the Clarion-Ledger

BILOXI — In the churches that minister in the shadows of Biloxi's tattered casinos, religious opposition to gambling is colliding with the region's economic reality.

Mississippi is considering allowing its coastal casinos to rebuild on land, a move that would help repair the state's $2.7 billion gambling industry following Hurricane Katrina. But while pastors and politicians in the state capital haggle over slots and sinning, many in the pews here have a pressing concern: survival.

"We have a lot of casino workers here and we don't take a stand. It's all about jobs," said Ersell Mason, a deacon at the Lighthouse Apostolic Holiness Church, the remains of which sit just up the street from many of the region's casinos. "God wants you to come to him and be a Christian. You can still do your job and come to him."

Some state lawmakers made God a player in the debate last week over the legislation that would allow coastal casinos, currently restricted to barges, to creep 800 feet on shore.

Supporters say that would give them more stability in storms, but opponents worry it would be a foothold for inland gaming.

State Rep. Deryk Parker, a Democrat whose Lucedale district is more than an hour northeast of the Coast, held up a hand-lettered sign during hearings last week reading "casino" with the letters "sin" written in red.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is my Mississippi, too," he said. "And I don't want that type of reputation for my state, for me or my children."

The House narrowly passed the legislation last week; debate on the bill is expected to resume this afternoon in the Senate.

It would expand a 1990 state law that authorized casinos while restricting them to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the Mississippi River.

With a membership that includes about 25 percent of the state's population, the Mississippi Baptist Convention is one of the most powerful anti-casino forces in the state.

About 50 Baptist pastors from across Mississippi converged last week on the Capitol in Jackson, urging legislators not to allow casinos on land.

That message was repeated Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Gulfport, which normally holds services just blocks from the casinos but had to move to the local high school after the hurricane.

D. Saxon, 77, of Gulfport said he wanted to see gambling eliminated from the community. But he acknowledged that many in the church survived off the casinos, either by working for them or by working in related industries that benefit from the tourism.

"As long as it's legal, it's an honest living," said Saxon.

Fellow churchgoer Tommy Truhett said the region would find other, better work if the casinos left.

"The answer to our problems is not the gambling. The answer to our problem is not the politicians," Truhett said. "The Lord is the answer."

At the Vietnamese Martyrs Church in Biloxi's Point Cadet neighborhood, where nearly half the Catholic parishioners work in the casinos, the answer is different.

"Casinos, that gives us jobs," said Jackie Trieu, whose daughter started work at a casino just days before the storm. "If they rebuild, it's going to give everybody jobs again."

Her 21-year-old daughter, Angela, said it's unfair to bring God into the debate in Jackson.

"I don't think they should have a say," she said. "They have jobs up there. They're not down here."