Government should heed the disapproval of legalized gambling by churches of different denominations - Statement of Evangelical Christian Baptists
Representatives of the Churches negatively assess the government's intention to legalize gambling in Ukraine. It was stated by Head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Associations of Evangelical Christians-Baptists Valery Antoniuk, UNN reports. “We, representatives of the Churches, have a negative view of these things. My attitude to this is the following: gambling is deception, falsehood, therefore a serious person will not be fond of such things; this is how we teach, we do not recommend that people take interest in this in any way; we believe it is impossible that one might possess anything or obtain anything deceiving others, and gambling is a fraud, but people go for it – this is one’s private matter, but the Church does not welcome this approach; with regard to the legislation, we believe that gambling should be banned,” Antonyuk said. According to him, in the period when gambling was legalized many people got in trouble. “And when people come and start talking about the problems of debt and when people lose significant amounts of money, then we have to say it is their personal choice and they reap what is sown,” he said. The Head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Associations of Evangelical Christians-Baptists also noted that the repeated appeals were lodged with the government disapproving the intention to legalize gambling. “We do not support such a decision and I think that the government should heed the position of the churches of different denominations! We disapprove it and condemn such positions,” Antonyuk said. As previously reported, the bill banning gambling business in Ukraine in 2009 was supported by 390 MPs. The grounds for such a ban were the disastrous effects of gambling business in Ukraine, including significant complication of the criminal situation in the country. It was also reported that on December 11, this year, the Cabinet of Ministers registered in the Parliament a bill prepared by the Ministry of Finance regarding the legalization of gambling. Representatives of UOC (MP), UOC-KP, UGCC, and RCC spoke out against the legalization of gambling.
