The Wages of Sin Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
January 16, 2007

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IN RECENT weeks, the government's plans to have licensed casino gambling introduced in Guyana have been met with stiff opposition from several quarters.

Most strident in the criticism is a grouping of three Christian groups – the Guyana Evangelical Fellowship (GEF), Guyana Council of Churches (GCC), and the Georgetown Ministers' Fellowship (GMF).

It is the position of these groups that the casino gambling has proven harmful to other communities in various countries (a position paper cites Barbados and the U.S.) and will – even if restricted by law to foreigners – cause irreparable harm to the fabric of local society.

"The suggestion," reads part of a document excerpted in the position paper, "that casinos may be located in the country for tourist gamblers only may be compared to implanting a cancerous cell in the body on the pretence that it can be isolated from the other cells and will not contaminate them."

Even as the debate over the morality, or immorality, of gambling is raging here, an interesting convention was recently concluded in the United States of America.

The Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada drew some 30,000 visitors. It should be noted, of course, that Las Vegas is the casino gambling capital of America.

The success of pornography, with its appeal to the must basic and yet most human of instincts – the innate drive to procreate – is a relatively easy one once you get past certain barriers of social inhibition.

Pornography has been the driving economic force behind some of the key inventions and innovations of the last century - from full-colour printing to the rise of the VCR and the VHS format, along with their subsequent obsolescence cum the DVD; to innovations on the Internet. VOIP, pod-casting, webcam chats, and user groups have all received a major boost due to the pornographic industry in the U.S.

The wages of sin? The industry is estimated to be worth around US$57 billion according to one report by the BBC. The annual income of the pornographic industry in the U.S. has actually eclipsed that of mainstream Hollywood in recent years.

Now consider that not only is such iniquity taking place in one of the more socially conservative countries in the world, and during the reign of a President who is a proud born again Christian, but that is also highly profitable.

True enough, there have been recent efforts to curtail the excesses within the industry, but considering the extremely wide latitude it's already given, these have shifted the situation little.

The point of all this is not to either argue for or against casino gambling in Guyana. It is simply to illustrate that very often governments and citizens are faced with certain moral quandaries. Very often, a decision needs to be made on what is ultimately best for the people of the country.

Do we continue to exist in the economic morass we are in, complete with its own trappings of moral deterioration?

Or do we introduce wealth creation initiatives which come with their own socio-cultural hazards?