Seventh-day Adventist Church members should join concerned Maryland residents by voting against a referendum on their November ballot to legalize 15,000 slot machines across the state, church officials agreed in a leadership meeting this week.

In a May 22 editorial in the Adventist Review, associate editor Roy Adams urged Maryland Adventists to join him in galvanizing concerned citizens against the "critical" referendum, which, if passed, would amend the state's constitution.

He suggested Adventists support coalitions against the proposal and write letters to their governor and other prominent state leaders, among other tangible ways to influence voters and legislators alike.

Maryland is home to the headquarters of the 16 million-strong global Protestant denomination.

Adams faulted "misguided leaders and special interests" in Maryland for glossing over what many concerned citizens wager will result from legalizing large-scale gambling: increased crime and a spike in addiction levels. Adams also cited a March 8 Washington Post article, which specified insurance fraud, increased domestic abuse, juvenile crime and drug- and alcohol-related felonies as additional risks.

The measure, backed by Maryland's governor and labour unions, is expected to pad state coffers with more than US$600 million a year. Adams called support for the proposal an "unconscionable" way to "balance the budget by destroying the lives of the most vulnerable ... citizens, leading many into dependency and addiction."

Responding to the editorial, Adventist Church President Jan Paulsen called its suggestions "timely" and "appropriate."

"It is so destructive to a community when gambling becomes the official approved way of life," Paulsen said, welcoming church members' efforts against the referendum.

Another church leader said even though Adventists "should be very clearly and decidedly against this [referendum]," the church should "frame it in a positive way." He suggested church members and leaders take their cue from their church's historic health and temperance work and perhaps launch a 12-step gambling addiction program.

In 2000, the Adventist Church released an official statement against gambling, calling it "incompatible with a Christian lifestyle" in part because it "violates the Christian sense of responsibility for family, neighbours, the needy and the church." The statement continues by urging state authorities to "prevent the ever-increasing availability of gambling with its damaging effects on individuals and society." [Editor: Elizabeth Lechleitner and Christian B. Schaeffler for ANN/APD]