First, liberal journalists and activists attacked the MyPillow guy who, despite turning his business into a mask-producing aid shop amid the coronavirus, was apparently too pro-Trump and too Christian for them not to indulge in a “Two Minutes Hate” at his expense. Now, left-wing activists and Democratic officials are targeting the operators of a New York City field hospital.
New Yorkers desperately need the hospital, which has been set up to aid in the current coronavirus crisis medical care shortage, but its operators are not woke enough, so some critics would apparently rather we just allow more people to die or go without care.
This comes even as New York is ground zero for the coronavirus crisis here in the United States, leading the country in both the number of infected individuals and total deaths. The triggering event for these activists was that social-conservative evangelical leader Franklin Graham and his Christian charity, Samaritan’s Purse, have set up a 68-bed field hospital, equipped with life-saving equipment and more than 60 medical professionals, to treat New Yorkers during the coronavirus crisis. Critics have seized on Graham’s anti-gay and anti-transgender past, choosing to focus on that right now, rather than the valuable work his charity is doing.
Part of this controversy centers around the fact that Graham’s group requires volunteers to sign a Statement of Faith that includes an endorsement of a traditional definition of marriage between “one genetic male and one genetic female.” This means their New York medical facility, which anyone is free not to go to, by the way, will only be staffed by professed Christian medical professionals. The horror!
Suffice it to say this didn’t go over well with left-wing critics and media outlets.
“Viciously anti-LGBTQ group runs Central Park tent hospital & forces volunteers to reject gay rights,” read the headline on LGBTQNation.com. The outlet Queerty screeched that “the tent hospital is operated by notorious homophobe Franklin Graham,” saying it “raise[s] questions about whether the city should ever partner with such an organization.”
“It’s a shame that the federal government has left New York with no other choice but to accept charity from bigots,” New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat, said. “You know those medical tents being constructed in Central Park? They’re being set up by notorious anti-gay bigot Franklin Graham. Mr. Graham must promise to treat EVERY patient with dignity and respect.”
“Franklin Graham has a long history of spewing anti-LGBT+ hate speech and I find it extremely troubling that he and his organization are involved in our relief efforts in any way,” said New York City Council Speaker Cory Johnson.
Left-wing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio initially said he was “very concerned” by Graham’s charity, and he only agreed to it after learning there would be no discrimination involved.
So yes, that’s right: All this outrage is really over nothing, as Graham has explicitly promised his group will provide much-needed coronavirus care to all, regardless of orientation or gender identification.
“We just need to say forget the politics right now,” Graham said. “Let’s work together to save lives. We don’t discriminate against anybody. Our doors are open for all New Yorkers — regardless of their race, ethnicity or their sexual preference. We treat everybody the same.”
Graham is in the right here, and frankly, the left-wing activists and officials attacking his charity come across simply unhinged.
Imagine being such a moral imbecile that instead of supporting efforts to provide COVID medical relief in New York City, you’re devoting your time to sliming the founder of the relief organization for being a fundamentalist Christian. pic.twitter.com/LfDw9mzqNE
— Berny Belvedere (@bernybelvedere) April 2, 2020
tfw you’d rather die than accept help from a *problematic* group. https://t.co/yykSce4jR0
— ?’? ? ??????? ???? (@BecketAdams) April 1, 2020
“In this time of crisis, anti-religious bigotry has no place in the public conversation and should be shamed as strongly as antisemitism or Islamophobia would be in the same situation,” gay conservative Chad Felix Greene wisely wrote for the Post Millennial. “Samaritan’s Purse is doing good work and the unfounded hatred from activists should not impede their ability to help people in need.”
As a gay man myself, I do find some of Graham’s views reprehensible. But he’s entitled to his religious views on marriage and morality, and even if I don’t share them, they don’t make him an evil bigot.
Now Graham specifically has taken some positions that are indeed cruel, intolerant, and bigoted. He once referred to gay acceptance to a “moral 9/11.” He has praised Vladimir Putin’s explicitly anti-gay censorship laws. He has even claimed, unconscionably, that gay people “take other people’s children.” And in endorsing the medically debunked practice of anti-gay conversion therapy, the evangelical leader is explicitly backing something I consider a form of child abuse.
But now is not the time to have these squabbles. If Graham wants to help people, including gay people, as the coronavirus rages across our country, more power to him. He’s doing something amazing.
We must never put an ideological litmus test on saving lives, especially during a crisis like this one. Left-wing activists who can’t see this are truly no longer “liberal” or “progressive” in any meaningful sense of the word.
