Praise the Samaritans

Griping has met the opening in Central Park of a 68-bed emergency field hospital operated by a nonprofit organization because the group that runs it is motivated by traditional Christian teachings, and its leader has said homophobic things.

New Yorkers, uber-liberal, arch-conservative and in between, ought to be thanking their lucky stars that Franklin Graham and Samaritan’s Purse decided to work with Mount Sinai Medical Center to bring their services, gratis, to America’s largest city, where stressed-tothe-breaking point medical institutions need all the help they can get.

It’s for that very same reason all should commend former NYPD commissioner Jimmy O’Neill for returning to duty, overseeing the urgent distribution of equipment to frontline health-care workers. Lord knows

Mayor de Blasio needs reinforcements.

As to Samaritan’s Purse, it works in more than 100 countries rapidly setting up ad hoc facilities when and where they’re needed. Just weeks ago, they established a unit in Northern Italy to help manage the horrifying flood of COVID-19 patients there.

The fact that Graham believes that samesex relations and gender transitioning are against God’s will matters not; what matters is that the field hospital’s medical professionals are duty-bound to obey the Hippocratic Oath.

If we cleansed our city of health-care institutions established by religious groups, there would be no Mount Sinai. No Methodist Hospital. No New York-Presbyterian.

People motivated to heal the sick out of a desire to please God: More power to you. Christian or not, religious or not, we pray for your success.