Religious opponents face tricky question on lottery scholarships

Published March 16, 2003

Religious opponents face tricky question on lottery scholarships

(AP Photo planned)

By BOBBY ROSS JR.

Associated Press Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ Don’t bet on Alan Rosenhauer to help make Tennessee’s proposed lottery a success.

If the state moves ahead with plans to join 38 others in the lottery business, the Franklin computer consultant won’t buy scratch tickets or wager on megastate jackpots.

Rosenhauer, a Southern Baptist, believes state-sponsored gambling preys on those least able to afford long odds.

But despite his concerns, he says there’s one prize he probably wouldn’t turn down: lottery-sponsored scholarships for his children.

“Just like I don’t agree with many of the taxes, but I still drive on the road,” said Rosenhauer, who has three sons and a daughter, ages 14 to 22.

There is, it seems, a fine line between principle and practicality.

Religious opponents waged an unsuccessful war to defeat the November referendum that removed Tennessee’s constitutional ban on a lottery. Now, Christians and religious schools struggle with the moral dilemma on whether to take a share of lottery proceeds.

“I think a person who is morally opposed to the lottery … should refuse the lottery scholarships,” said Lonnie Wilkey, editor of the Baptist and Reflector, the newspaper of the 1-million-member Tennessee Baptist Convention. “Some people, however, may be forced to choose between their moral convictions and whether or not their child attends college.”

Rubel Shelly, minister of the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ in Nashville, said he wouldn’t take lottery money “just as a matter of conscience.”

“But I also understand the dollar-driven nature of decisions that otherwise principled people feel compelled to make,” said Shelly, who served on the board of the anti-lottery Gambling Free Tennessee Alliance.

Shelly also wishes the state’s religious colleges would unite against the lottery _ not fight to benefit from it.

But Bob Agee, executive director of the Nashville-based Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools, said the issue isn’t morality but fairness.

Giving public university students twice as much lottery-funded scholarship money as private college students who meet the same academic criteria _ 3.0 grade-point averages and 19 ACT scores _ would be discriminatory, Agee said.

Two competing scholarship proposals have emerged in the Legislature. An Education Lottery Task Force plan would offer public university students $4,000 a year and private college students $2,000. But the joint House-Senate Lottery Information and Recommendation Committee has endorsed equal scholarship amounts for all students.

Even the scholarship bill’s sponsors, Sen. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, and Rep. Chris Newton, R-Cleveland, disagree on equalization _ an omen perhaps of the intense debate that could occur in the General Assembly.

Cohen advocates a “fiscally conservative” approach and points out that Georgia’s lottery _ Tennessee’s model _ only gave private college students $500 in its first year.

But Newton says Tennesseans expected the dollars to follow students, not institutions, when they approved a lottery. He pushes for a “G.I. Bill-style” scholarship redeemable at any Tennessee university.

A dozen students from Freed-Hardeman University, a Church of Christ college in Henderson, drove to Nashville recently to lobby lawmakers to treat students equally.

“I’m not sure I could take the money, to be honest with you,” said Murray Butler, 20, a sophomore from Huntingdon. “But there are a lot of students who need that money.”

Leading the fight for equalization has been the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association. It’s not a religious organization, but 29 of its 35 member schools have ties to Christian denominations.

The association’s chairman, Steve Flatt, is president of the Church of Christ-affiliated Lipscomb University in Nashville.

At a recent Education Lottery Task Force meeting, Flatt argued that raising the private college scholarship amount to $4,000 would be “fiscally sound” and fit within a $200 million annual scholarship target.

“We’ve come a long way … to where my friend Dr. Flatt has more confidence in the lottery proceeds than me,” joked Cohen, who has often clashed with religious conservatives during his 19-year push for a lottery.

Flatt said he still views a lottery as a poor method of raising state income.

But when the state enacts a financial aid program, it should benefit all students the same regardless of whether the funding source is the lottery or “sin taxes” on liquor and cigarettes, he said.

Rosenhauer agreed.

“Part of me is a practical person and says, ‘A majority of people voted for the lottery and if my children are eligible for it, I’m going to take it.’”

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On the Net:

Tennessee General Assembly: www.legislature.state.tn.us

Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association: www.ticua.org