JACKSON, Miss. (ABP) — Remember those floating casinos washed ashore by Hurricane Katrina? The Mississippi legislature wants to let them stay there — or, more accurately, let them rebuild on land.
Despite strong opposition from Mississippi Baptists and other religious groups, state senators voted 29-21 Oct. 3 to give final approval to a bill aimed at reinvigorating an industry that provides about 15,000 jobs to Mississippi's decimated coastal region. The state's House of Representatives approved the measure just days earlier during a special legislative session called by Gov. Haley Barbour (R). Barbour also supports the bill.
“The Bible says you can't serve two masters — God and money. You'll hate one and love the other,” William Perkins, editor of Mississippi Baptists' newspaper, told the Associated Press after the Senate vote. “We believe the vote today proved that Mississippi does love money.”
Mississippi first legalized gambling in 1990 — but only at barge casinos docked on the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast. The practice is becoming a common way to get around laws against traditional land-based gambling.
Katrina's Aug. 29 storm surge destroyed 13 casinos located in Gulfport, Biloxi and other coastal cities. The wind-driven waves tore many of the massive structures from their moorings, depositing them hundreds of yards inland.
Casino owners say they need the permission to rebuild on dry land in order to minimize such losses in the future.
While praising the hurricane-relief work of Mississippi Baptists — who comprise approximately one fourth of the state's population and who dominate the state legislature — a columnist for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger said their opposition to the casino rebuilding was nonetheless misguided.
“[W]aging a fight against allowing the gaming that's been legal in the state for far longer than a decade to reopen across the highway from original establishments and provide good jobs for thousands on the coast who need them seems ill-conceived,” wrote Sid Salter. “It's like a church fighting to stop a grocery store destroyed by a tornado from rebuilding because it sells beer.”
But Perkins and others argued that loosening the restrictions on casinos was yet another example of a powerful gaming industry gaining ground, inch by inch.
“Mississippi Baptists have been opposed to legalized gambling from the start, and each of us should be willing to contact our individual legislators… to let them know how we feel about the ever-expanding influence of the gambling/political complex in Mississippi,” he wrote in the Baptist Record.
— Photos available from Associated Baptist Press.