Area pastors joining fight

Area pastors joining fight
BY RICK FOSTER SUN CHRONICLE STAFF

FOXBORO - Twenty Foxboro area religious leaders opposed to a $1 billion resort casino across from Gillette Stadium have written selectmen in opposition to gambling and in support of the board's September anti-gambling vote.

The clergy members, who made public a letter they submitted Dec. 27, cited an Ohio study that said expanded gaming poses dangers of crime, problem gambling and other social costs and that economic benefits would be "mixed" because many jobs would be low-paying.

The Rev. Bill Dudley, pastor of Union Church in Foxboro, said local religious leaders are "pretty unanimous" in opposing a casino and related development by Las Vegas casino and hotel developer Steve Wynn on land owned by the Kraft Group.

"No one refused to sign," Dudley said.

The clergy members represented the Foxboro, Walpole and Norfolk areas. "There were just a couple we couldn't reach because they were out of town," Dudley said.

Dudley said he recently counseled a woman whose husband gambled away their house and bank accounts at a Connecticut casino. He said he fears the expansion of such gaming in Foxboro will come with a bevy of social costs.

"Who will reimburse this lady from the profits they made for her lost house?" Dudley said. "What casino owner gives money back to the kids who go hungry because Dad or Mom gambled away the food budget?"

Casino proponents, however, say there's already plenty of gambling in Massachusetts, including bingos and Las Vegas nights to benefit charity and religious purposes.

According to the Massachusetts State Lottery, more than $81 million was spent on non-Lottery charity games in 2010. That doesn't include the state Lottery, itself, which takes in more than $4 billion per year.

Foxboro, itself, hosted legal wagering at the Foxboro Harness Raceway for 50 years, ending in 1997. According to Lottery records, a total of $65 million in lottery tickets were sold in Foxboro from 2003 to 2011.

Anita Kloss of North Grove Street, a supporter of the pro-casino group Jobs for Foxboro, said she sees a resort casino in terms of jobs and economic development, rather than as a moral or ethical issue.

"This is not a religious issue; it's a community issue," Kloss said, adding that her daughter works in a casino. "Foxboro is not against gambling."

She said she doubts the clergy speaks for everyone in the community.

"Let the community speak for itself," she said. "I prefer to speak for myself with a written ballot."

Wynn Resorts, which plans to build the resort casino complex off Route 1, has yet to present a detailed development plan. Approval at a townwide referendum would be required before a casino could be built, and Wynn is expected to face competition from Suffolk Downs in Boston for one of the state's three authorized casino licenses.

In communities that already host casinos, clergy aren't unanimous in condemning gambling.

In a 2010 interview with the Allentown Morning Call, Pennsylvania Moravian Church official David Wickman, who had fought to keep a casino out of Bethlehem, Pa., said the new Sands hotel there turned out not to be as bad as he thought.

"My biggest worry was that it would detract from the lifestyle and reputation in the Lehigh Valley," he told the paper. "Thankfully, that hasn't happened. But it is still gambling. I give them a C."

However, Sharon Joseph, pastor of the Church of The Manger in Bethlehem, disagreed.

Joseph said gaming is fraught with negatives, and that she can't forget her time counseling an imprisoned man who had been convicted of embezzling to feed his gambling habit.

"There's nothing recreative in gambling," she said.