By Bill Fancher
October 12, 2006

WASHINGTON, DC (AgapePress) - The U.S. federal legislature has tried to head off potential problems associated with gambling by passing a bill to limit that kind of activity on the Internet. Ashley Horne, congressional liaison for Concerned Women for America (CWA), says her group is happy about this last-minute action taken by Congress before the election recess.

"The Internet gambling bill that we had been working on for quite some time was passed, so we were very pleased with that," Horne says. However, she notes that the bill made it through Congress not as a stand-alone piece of legislation but as an attachment to the Defense Authorization bill.

But even though this is "not exactly how we would have liked to have seen it" happen, the legislation "got through," Horne says, "and that's what matters." And this anti-gambling measure, she points out, takes a unique approach to the problem.

"The bill goes after the gambling transaction," the CWA official explains, "not directly after those who are providing Internet gambling or the person who is doing the Internet gambling." What the legislation does, Horne adds, is not target the online gambling site operator or its patrons; but rather, it "seeks to stop the money transaction from taking place."

Lanier Swann, director of government relations for CWA, says the organization is "ecstatic about the bill's passage," even though it had to be attached to another measure. "Most Americans don't realize that Internet gambling is a crime," she observes. "This is a monumental victory for families who have loved ones who are getting hooked to their 'home casinos.'"

What CWA wanted to avoid was "a safeguarding of easy, click-of-a-mouse access to gambling," Swann asserts. She says this newly passed legislation will give authority to the Department of Justice and to state attorney generals to enforce the laws on the books and to "strangle illegal Internet gambling by cutting off the flow of money."

As Concerned Women for America celebrates the passage of the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act, the group is also commending Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona for his sponsorship of this important anti-gambling legislation. Also, CWA has thanked Senator Bill Frist for "exemplary leadership" on the issue.

Bill Fancher, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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