Focus on the Family Sponsors Effort to Limit the Expansion of Gambling
Focus on the Family (FOF) announced on Friday their support in the effort to allow Maine citizens to vote on the expansion of slot-machine gambling.
Focus on the Family (FOF) announced on Friday their support in the effort to allow Maine citizens to vote on the expansion of slot-machine gambling.
At a news conference held in front of Hollywood Slots, FOF Gambling Analyst Chad Hills announced that the ministry will collaborate with Maine’s No Slot for Me! and the Grassroot Coalition to collect 50,519 verified voter signature in order to make the slot-machine ban an agenda on Maine’s November 2006 ballot.
The conference came before the launching a weekend statewide tour to gain support for the signature-gathering effort.
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Focus on the Family has a history of opposing gambling and its expansion, claiming that “gaming” “destroys marriages, undermines the work ethic, increases crime, motivates suicide, destroys the financial security of families and is related to any number of other social issues.
"It is misguided at best,” Dr. James Dobson, the founder and chairman of FOF, stated in a newsletter, “and malicious at worst for Maine to consider expanding gambling any further.”
“The legacy gambling leaves in its wake is bankruptcy, divorce, child and spousal abuse, crime and suicide. Maine cannot afford these losses, nor do Mainers want to pay this price."
The FOF Position Statement on Gambling says that FOF is against gambling because it is based on greed, exploits the poor and vulnerable, gives false hopes, and promotes laziness.
The 50,519 signature, which must be gathered by Oct. 4, 2005, will allow the presence of an anti-gambling voice on the November 2006 ballot, asking all voters in Maine if slot-machine should be banned.
"It is crucial that all voters make their voices heard at the ballot box," Hills said. "But in order to do that, signatures must first be gathered. I urge Mainers who care about their families, neighbors and communities to take a stand against this insidious and addictive form of gambling."
