Christian Conservatives Write to Congress

June 15, 2009

Conservative Christian groups have gotten together to write a letter to Congress, urging them to uphold the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA. They have asked them to vote against the new bill proposed by Rep. Barney Frank and to continue the ban.

The biggest problem with the letter is that not only are they representing a smaller group of Americans and making it seem like they speak for the majority, but the letter is full of unsubstantiated claims regarding online gambling. They have asked Congress to ignore existing trade agreements, the possibility of economic development and to impose their form of martial law on US citizens � telling them what they can and cannot do with their own money.

One of the lies that the group included in the letter is �the prevalence of gambling addiction is three to four times higher with Internet gambling versus non-internet gambling." This of course is a favorite reason of anti freedom groups to keep online gambling illegal � but just is not true. There have been several studies, the latest of which came from Dr. Howard Shaffer at Harvard Medical School. The fact is that land based gambling addiction is much more prevalent than online gambling addiction, and of those online gambling addicts, it was found that almost all of them started out as land based gamblers.

They also tried to make it seem as though online gambling was controlled by the Poker Players Alliance and that it was a foreign company. The group is partially funded by the Interactive Gaming Council which is based in Canada � but the PPA is very much a US company.

Many Christians themselves are horrified by the letter. When asked, Joseph Riggoto said that it was un-Christian in every form. He said that he did not want to be associated with the letter, and that it gave Christians a bad name. He said that although he would never participate in online gambling he would never propose to tell someone else to do, nor would he lie to get someone to vote on his side.
 

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