(1010 WINS) (ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.) The rooms in the splashy, billion-dollar Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa will be missing one item when it opens this summer – a Bible. The casino’s owners have barred the local chapter of Gideons International from placing Bibles in each of its 2,002 rooms, marking the first time that an Atlantic City casino has established such a policy. “What we’ve found is there’s such a diversity of gaming customers that visit Atlantic City, by putting one generic publication in there you’re not fulfilling the needs of everybody,” Michael Facenda, a Borgata spokesman, told The Press of Atlantic City for Wednesday’s editions.
Jim Werner, the Bible scriptures secretary for the Gideons’ Atlantic County chapter, believes the casino will eventually reverse its policy. “A lot of times the casino hotels have taken their time to make a decision,” Werner said. “I’m sure it’s lower on the list of decision-making. I’m sure they have more important things on their mind than 'shall we put Bibles in the rooms?”’ The Nashville, Tenn.-based group, founded in 1899, distributes more than a million free Bibles per week in 176 countries and 80 languages. The group concentrates its efforts at hotels and motels, overnight health-care facilities, schools, prisons and with military and public-safety personnel.
No doubt they’ll keep a few somewhere for when a customer notices it not in the drawer and complains. Gotta read the Holy Book after a long day of gambling, drinking, and pounding hookers!
Damn, Gideon distributes over a million bible a week. I guess God hates trees.
I’m mildly annoyed that the reporter says the rooms will be “missing one item.” As if somehow a bible is an essential part of a hotel room, like a bed or a toilet.
I hope the hotel sticks to their policy. It’s absolutely the right choice. (Unless, of course, they let any religious group put materials in the rooms, so as to be non-discriminatory)
Of course, the best solution to equal access would be to simply place an internet terminal in the room, with bookmarks to on-line versions of every holy book.