NYC Democrats “Very Concerned” About Taking Help From Christian Group

Talk to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, or any of the journalists covering the coronavirus situation in the Big Apple, and you get a single, unified message: New York is hurting, New York is running out of medical supplies, New York needs all the help they can get. They need Navy hospital ships. They need to turn the Javitts Center into a makeshift hospital. They need 30,000 ventilators from the federal government. They need, in short, everything.

But help from a Christian organization? Hmm, well…maybe not?

“Samaritan’s Purse is running a makeshift hospital in Central Park. NYC mayor DeBlasio (and many residents I’ve spoken with) are ‘very concerned’ that there is an anti-gay evangelical relief org setting up shop in their backyard,” reports Christian journalist Jonathan Merritt.

If you’re not familiar with Samaritan’s Purse, it is a nonprofit run by prominent evangelical pastor Franklin Graham, himself a frequent target of scorn on the left. Graham’s charity has set up an emergency field hospital in Central Park to help treat patients who can no longer fit into a bed at Mt. Sinai. You would think that New York City, besieged by far more COVID-19 cases than can be found anywhere else in the country, would be more than grateful to take the help. But no, apparently they’re more concerned about what kind of “anti-gay” sentiment the organization might be bringing to New York.

Mt. Sinai Hospital – the very hospital that Samaritan’s Purse is there to help – actually made the organization sign a pledge to treat all patients equally. Like…what? These are still health care workers. Do you really think they’re going to deny care to someone because they happen to be gay? It’s right there in the name: SAMARITAN. That whole story is about looking beyond a person’s “identity” to treat them as a human being. Guess the Democrats in New York never read that parable.

“We’re going to send people over from the Mayor’s Office to monitor. I am very concerned that this is done right. But if it is done right, we need all the help we can get,” said NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio.

That was followed by this statement from NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson: “This is very disturbing. We need reassurances from the city and from Mt. Sinai that Samaritan’s Purse and its volunteers will be monitored, and that the LGBTQ community will not be discriminated against in any way. This is a crisis, but our values remain.”

Well, Johnson is right about one thing, it is “disturbing.” It’s disturbing that New York City Democrats are so filled with ignorance and hate for Christians that they would reject help in a public health crisis.