NYC Ingrates
Insulting helpers who came when most needed
NO good deed goes unpunished. A group of evangelical Christians discovered the truth of that cruel adage firsthand, after some of our local politicos repaid their charity with savage scorn, with City Council Speaker Corey Johnson calling for their expulsion in a spittleflecked Twitter rant.
The group in question is Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian medical-relief organization with a sterling record of providing aid across the globe, whenever and wherever emergency help is needed. Having established topflight, military-grade clinics in far-flung warzones, the group recently did the same in COVID19-devastated New York City.
Its tent hospital in Central Park, built in cooperation with Mount Sinai Health System, treated hundreds of virus patients just when Gotham’s hospitals feared they were about to be overwhelmed.
True to its name, Samaritan’s Purse asked nothing from New York and gave much by taking some of the burden off the shoulders of our health workers on the front lines of the battle against COVID.
But that wasn’t enough to cause some local poli- ticians to put aside their own lefty prejudices and zeal for smoking out religious-conservative bogeymen. The good Samaritans who came to our aid don’t share the socially liberal beliefs of most New Yorkers.
Samaritan’s Purse is an avowedly religious group. It makes no bones about the fact that its good deeds are an image of its faith in the Gospels. As such, its employees are people who subscribe to the group’s religious beliefs — as would be the case in any religious organization, whether Catholic Church or Orthodox Jewish or what have you.
As an organization, Samaritan’s Purse doesn’t believe in gay marriage, and that apparently is enough to make it persona non grata to some New Yorkers, including Mayor de Blasio, who vowed to investigate the group — just when it was getting started with its rescue mission.
Rather than welcome the group’s unselfish sacrifice, our local bigs greeted it with suspicion and hostility, thus treating the pandemic as one more culture-war battle line, rather than an opportunity to unite across the old divides.
City bureaucrats pestered the group for information about its cultural practices. Four local Democratic members of Congress — Reps. Jerry Nadler, Carolyn Maloney, Adriano Espaillat and AOC — sent a letter to Mount Sinai expressing their “concern” about the group’s efforts and demanding to know how it had received permission to operate in Central Park.
Mount Sinai pointed out that “the virus kills people of every religious belief, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation” and that Samaritan’s Purse treats all patients. But that wasn’t good enough. A well-practiced culture warrior, Johnson was the group’s most vehement, and least gracious, enemy.
Now that the crisis has subsided, the field hospital is no longer needed. But there were plans for some Samaritan’s Purse personnel to relocate to Mount Sinai to continue the fight against the virus. But the pressure on the hospital for daring to cooperate with an evangelical group has caused it to decide to sever ties with the organization.
As far as Johnson is concerned, it’s good riddance.
“It is time for Samaritan’s Purse to leave NYC,” he tweeted Friday. “This group, led by the notoriously bigoted, hate-spewing Franklin Graham, came at a time when our city couldn’t in good conscience turn away any offer of help. That time has passed. Their continued presence here is an affront to our values of inclusion, and is painful for all New Yorkers who care deeply about the LGBTQ community.”
No doubt, Johnson’s posturing is in part a product of his ambitions on Gracie Mansion. But it’s still a disgrace. The same is true for others who did their best to demonstrate their ingratitude.
You don’t have to share Samaritan’s Purse’s faith or assent to its views about gay rights. Nor do you need to like its CEO, Franklin Graham, who is widely disliked here because of his support for President Trump and his rockribbed social conservatism.
But nothing justifies the lack of respect for Samaritan’s Purse workers, who put their own lives on the line when New York was in danger. There could be no greater proof of the sincerity of their faith or their commitment to helping those in need in the image of their master. Yet instead of receiving our profound thanks, they’ve been run out of town by hack politicians who think scoring culture war points is more important than saving lives.
Now who are the real zealots? Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org.