Jack Smiles column

Thursday, February 9, 2012

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On Super Bowl betting and Manger scenes at courthouses

Sunday January 10, 2010 | 12:00 AM

Jack Smiles jsmiles@psdispatch.com

A $3,000 Super Bowl betting pool run out of the teachers’ lounge at the Wyoming Valley West Middle School was broken up a couple weeks ago. This week the Kingston police declined to investigate. Finally, somebody with some sense around here, the Kingston cops.

When he stumbled on the Super Bowl pool Valley West Super Chuck Suppon said, “I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing to do.”

Really? It’s not? I can’t think of a more appropriate way to end the football season than with a Super Bowl pool.

Betting on the Super Bowl is appropriate. It’s as appropriate as putting up a Christmas tree or throwing a New Year’s Eve party.

Somehow it’s not appropriate to bet on the Super Bowl, but it is appropriate for the state to license slot machines and table games.

I guess gambling at licensed casinos is as all fun and games while Super Bowl pools are ruining people’s lives.

That’s backwards if you ask me. Super Bowl pools really are all harmless fun and games, while casinos are where lives can be ruined so the state legislature can spend like the proverbial drunken sailor.

Now which is inappropriate?

By the way, legalized sports betting is on the way. If gambling is the only way the drunken sailors in Harrisburg can balance a budget, sports betting has got to be next because we all know they aren’t going to stop spending. Maybe my dream of a sports betting parlor on a river pier in Pittston will be realized. That will put Pittston in the lights big time.

I would love to bet legally on football games in a legal casino with a big flashing tote board and a cold pint of Sam Adams in front of me.

The Courthouse Manger

Here is the first clause in the first of the 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, which we call the Bill of Rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

That’s it.

That’s all it says about religion.

How the Supreme Court could interpret those 15 words to mean a county government can’t put a manger scene on its grounds is ridiculous in the extreme. Yet they did it, so technically, I suppose, placing the manger scene on the courthouse lawn is illegal.

But offensive?

I’m sick of whiners who are offended by every darn thing they don’t like or believe in. Note that those 15 words don’t say anything about freedom from religion. They don’t say there is a right not to be offended. It takes a world class jerk to be offended by the depiction of the birth of a baby.

The county could put up displays for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, the birthday of the Buddha, or even a display for those who believe in nothing. Like maybe they could dig a hole or something.

The county could do these things and I wouldn’t be offended. What’s offensive about a religious display of any kind?

By the way, those 15 words could be interpreted, by me at least, to mean the county has a duty to erect a manger scene, because by not erecting one they are violating the free exercise clause. What better free exercise of Christianity could there be? And since the commissioners were elected largely by Christians, by erecting a manger they are enabling our free exercise.

And that, it is obvious, is just what we want them to do.