wfn.org | Warrior Preacher Battles Gambling

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (366
notes).

Note 365 by UMNS on Oct. 2, 1997 at 16:03 Eastern (6331 characters).

CONTACT:  Thomas S. McAnally			553(10-21-71B){365}
          Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470	  Oct. 2, 1997

NOTE: A photo is available with this story.

Warrior preacher 
battles gambling 

A UMNS Feature
by Daniel R. Gangler*
Courtesy of the United Methodist Reporter

	"This isnt a Sunday school picnic. Were in a tough fight, said the Rev. Tom
Grey as he touched down around noon Sept. 18 in Portland, Ore.,  to meet with
grassroots troops wanting to battle against state-sponsored gambling.
With a strategy outlined on an airline napkin, he headed for his first
meeting.
Grey, a 57-year-old United Methodist clergyman and Vietnam veteran, fights
hard and long against overwhelming odds to stop the expansion of gambling in
America, and he is succeeding. He views each trip to help another grassroots
group as visiting troops in the trenches. 
When he comes into a meeting, he takes off his coat, loosens his tie and rolls
up the sleeves of his white shirt as if getting ready for a street fight. 
Oregon was the fifth state Grey visited in September, and he had five more
scheduled before the end of the month. He has been in 35 states this year. 
His trip to Oregon helped organize another anti-gambling coalition of church,
business and political leaders intent on removing state-sponsored video poker
gambling. The battle will come during the 1998 fall political campaigns (see
related story below).
Grey boasts an incredible record of 19 state battles won and 5 losses, plus
countless local battles won during his three years as executive director of
the Washington-based National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. The
coalition runs on a shoestring budget and a staff of two. 
He came to Oregon in response to requests for help from United Methodist
laywoman Ruth Hutchens and trial lawyer Greg Kafoury. This pattern repeats
itself over and over. Even while in Oregon he was receiving 25-30 calls a day
from Minnesota, Florida, Oklahoma, Montana, Idaho, Massachusetts, Iowa and
Nevada  wherever citizens want to fight the gambling industry trying to force
its way into communities and states with government-sponsored lotteries,
video games and casinos.
	Why do people call?
"Gambling is every persons story," he responds. "A lot of people have gotten
reamed by gambling." He is an advocate and catalyst for people like new
anti-gambling activists
Harvey and Diana Hafemann in Oregon. Their son Bob committed
suicide last year as a result of his addiction to state-sponsored video poker.

Grey came to Oregon to help the Hafemanns, politicians, church leaders and
business people and to further his own hopes of reversing gambling trends
nationally. 
He says Oregon is key to his national efforts. Even though anti-gambling
efforts have stopped the expansion of gambling in 35 states, no group has
succeeded in rolling back state-sponsored gambling. He hopes Oregon will be a
first state and start a domino effect.
A wiry, physically fit war veteran, Grey was a lieutenant colonel in the Army
Reserves serving as a chaplain as well as a pastor of a Galena, Ill., United
Methodist church when he started his work against gambling
four years ago. He lives in Hanover, near Galena, in the northwest corner of
the state on the Mississippi River. 
There as a pastor in 1993 he first battled casino gambling on riverboats and,
to his surprise, won. The press nicknamed him "Riverboat Rambo."
He employs a military vocabulary, giving numerous battle analogies and telling
stories from war movies while speaking to  groups. He labels those who fight
gambling as Gideons army (Judges 7) because the forces are small
but committed, wise and powerful. 
He also talks in sound-bites, using a multitude of facts stored in his head
and creatively begins his numerous presentations with a medicine-show bottle
likening the gambling industry to snake-oil salesmen. 
"These are bottom line people," says Grey. "Whats theirs is theirs, and what
s yours is negotiable."
He became a nationally identifiable figure on Aug. 17 when CBS-TVs "60
Minutes" news show aired a quarter hour segment about him and the National
Coalition Against Legalized Gambling.
The David-and-Goliath story showed him doing battle with Frank Fahenkopf,
president of the Washington-based American Gambling Association. The two also
have gone head-to-head 30 times this year in town hall meetings. "60
Minutes" filmed and interviewed Grey over a nine-month period.
When asked what the national TV exposure has done for him, he said, "Given me
$10 and 50 more phone calls from people needing our help."
He said he believes that church and civic groups have a window of opportunity
to beat state-sponsored gambling and casinos if they act now. He quotes from
the United Methodist Social Principles: "Gambling is a menace to society,
deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic, and spiritual life,
and destructive of good government" (Para.69 of the Book of Discipline, page
100).
	He says, "If the church doesnt get behind this issue now, we might lose it
[the fight against legalized gambling]. I dont think there is a coordinated
understanding (about gambling) at the churchs national level."
Even though he is somewhat critical of the denomination, he receives a stipend
of $24,000 from United Methodist churchwide funds, but this source was
scheduled to run out Oct. 1.	
"Where is the church?" asks Grey. "I am the only one speaking out(nationally)
against gambling. We need interviews (about gambling) with bishops."
He has brought together people at opposite ends of the ideological pole. Both
Ralph Reed, former executive of the Christian Coalition, and the Green
political) Partys Ralph Nader say they support the national coalitions work
against gambling. Jokingly, he says the rest of America is somewhere
between the two Ralphs.
	As he seeks new funding from mainline denominations, he also will seek
support from evangelical groups such as James Dobsons Focus on the Family
ministries based in Colorado Springs.
	Grey says his national campaign to stop and roll back gambling is going to
draw national attention from now on. 
"Its winnable," says Grey, "because truth is wonderful. It
marches."
#  #  #

*Gangler is an associate editor of the United Methodist
Reporter in Dallas.

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