They used to quote scripture to its completion in Montgomery: "The wages of sin is death."

Now it's more like "the wages of sin is ... taxable."

So go ahead and roll them bones. Change is sweeping through this state like some kind of cyclone, the kind that picks up a Statehouse and dumps it in some Technicolor dream world. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. But are we still in the Bible Belt?

If a bill by Republican Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh (one of the most powerful unindicted members of the Alabama Legislature) actually passes, citizens would soon vote not only on a long-debated state lottery, but on actual casino gambling at four dog tracks, with slot machines and table games like blackjack and roulette.

House Speaker Mike Hubbard (one of the state's most powerful indicted members of the Legislature) is reportedly eying a whole different gambling option, a compact with the Creek Indians in Atmore that would give the tribe exclusive rights to table games in exchange for an annual wad of state cash.

There are separate lottery proposals to fill the hole. Where the heck are we?

I guess gambling may still be a sin around here, but it's less wicked than an ungodly tax increase for a Alabama Legislator. But can we still claim membership in the Bible Belt? Is it time for some sinful suspenders instead?

Hmmm.

Alabama ignores that "thou shalt not kill" commandment, posting the second highest murder rate in America in 2013, the last full year available. And blessed aren't its poor. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, half Alabama's children are low income. Yet we still tax groceries.

Alabama bodies are not temples. Obesity weighs heavily on the state, and use of mind-altering drugs is high. Alabama barely does anything to discourage smoking. It got all Fs from the American Lung Association for methods of preventing tobacco use.

But who are we fooling here? Nobody.

This is still Alabama. And the Bible Belt might as well be buckled around our belly. Gallup says the state has the third-highest rate of church attendance, trailing only Utah and Mississippi. And according to the American Bible Society, Birmingham this year supplanted Chattanooga as America's Most Bible-Minded City.

So what gives with the gambling? It can't simply be the gaping hole in the state budget that has caused Alabama politicians to shift their values. We've known that debt was on the horizon for years - and if Gov. Bentley says he didn't see it coming, well, he's breaking the 9th Commandment.

The fact is that Republicans, despite all the sound and fury over electronic bingo during the Bob Riley administration, were never all that opposed to the notion of gambling in the first place. At least not because they thought it a sin.

They were opposed to gambling because gambling interests - most notably Milton McGregor - used the money from his operations to seed the campaigns of lawmakers who were friendly to his causes. And most of those were Democrats. And that's where the real change has come.

Not in the interpretation of the Bible, but in the realities of politics.

McGregor could make more money than Steve Wynn and God and he still couldn't get more than a handful of Democrats elected in Alabama today. But if his money starts rolling in again, he'll still need good, reasonable politicians to donate to. And they'll probably be Republicans.

Just like the Creeks, who funneled money to Hubbard PACS and other groups to fight a lottery to preserve their own monopoly. Just like anyone who wants to sway a politician's values.

They'll thump the Bible Belt all they can. But it's the Money Belt that matters.