Opinion

WALSH: LGBT Activists Rallied To Shut Down A Christian Field Hospital. This Is What The ‘Gay Rights’ Movement Has Become.

   DailyWire.com
CREMONA, ITALY - MARCH 20: A Samaritan's Purse staffer seals the tent of an Intensive Care Unit at a Samaritan's Purse Emergency Field Hospital on March 20, 2020 in Cremona, near Milan, Italy. Samaritan’s Purse is an evangelical Christian organization working in crisis areas of the world; thanks to a 68-bed respiratory unit, 32 members of Samaritan's Purse disaster response team will provide medical care during the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images)
Photo by Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images

Samaritan’s Purse, a charitable Christian organization, has been essentially run out of New York City after opening a volunteer field hospital to help care for COVID-19 patients.

Their operation in the city was coming to an end soon in any case, as the outbreak is increasingly brought under control, but local media reports that “controversy over the group’s religious views” contributed to the decision to shut it down earlier than expected. To be clear, the “controversy” is that Samaritan’s Purse is Christian, and radical LGBT activists hate Christians. It really is that simple.

It should go without saying that Samaritan’s Purse never discriminated against any patients. It volunteered to serve and help anyone, no matter their sexual orientation, and that’s exactly what it did. But extremist gay groups like Reclaim Pride Coalition rallied to have the volunteers chased out of town, and are now celebrating the closing of a field hospital as a “victory of the LGBT community and other oppressed groups.” A member of the coalition castigated New York City for “bringing a huge, dangerous bigot into our midst,” which is perhaps an overly hostile way to describe a field hospital.

But “overly hostile” is the name of the game where these particular LGBT activists are concerned. A video posted by Reclaim Pride a few days ago features drag queen Marti Cummings ranting that Samaritan’s Purse is a “bigoted, anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ institution” that has “instilled bigoted beliefs into the world” (whatever that means). Now, there is no doubt that a man who provides the essential service of dancing in women’s clothes is in a good position to criticize volunteer healthcare workers. Even so, I have to wonder why Cummings, if he cares so much for LGBTQ people and Muslims, is calling for the banishment of an organization that serves LGBTQ people and Muslims. By the way, I’d like to know if Cummings has ever spoken out against any Muslim group for their “bigoted” views about the LGBT community. If it was a Muslim charitable organization serving the sick in New York, would Cummings be making these same criticisms, or would he be attacking anyone who says exactly what he is saying about Samaritan’s Purse?

I’d ask the same question of NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who excoriated the Christian group in a lengthy Twitter harangue, claiming that it is “an affront to our values of inclusion, and is painful for all New Yorkers” for Christians to help sick people. Johnson said that Samaritan’s Purse’s founder, “notoriously bigoted, hate-spewing” Franklin Graham, “came at a time when our city couldn’t in good conscience turn away any offer of help.” We should pause to appreciate the awe-inspiring pettiness of this accusation. It is not very often that a person is accused of nefariously taking advantage of a crisis in order to provide kindness and charity.

Johnson, along with many other critics of the other organization, also takes issue with the statement of faith that all volunteers are required to sign. But contrary to how the statement is characterized by LGBT activists, there is nothing bigoted about it. Here’s the relevant bit touching on the issue of marriage:

“We believe God’s plan for human sexuality is to be expressed only within the context of marriage, that God created man and woman as unique biological persons made to complete each other. God instituted monogamous marriage between male and female as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society. For this reason, we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.”

This is a basic Christian tenet and does not imply “bigotry” toward anyone. It seems a rather reasonable thing for a Christian organization, in order to preserve its identity as as a Christian organization, to ensure that its members are in fact Christian. What would be unreasonable and truly bigoted is if patients were made to sign a statement pledging their fealty and obedience to Christian doctrine before receiving treatment, but Samaritan’s Purse has no such requirement.

The real lesson here is one that we have learned many times over by now: left-wing gay activists are, so often, bullies who wish to impose their priorities and viewpoints on everyone else, in every situation, no matter the context. These are people of such narrow minds and prejudicial dispositions that they would actually hail the shuttering of a Christian field hospital during a pandemic as a “victory” for their cause. And it is a victory for their cause, if their cause is to be so unsympathetic and unlikable that even people who disagree with the Christian teaching on homosexuality are forced to defend Christian charitable organizations. Radical gay activists always claim that they just want to be left alone to live their own lives and make their own choice, but that is exactly what they won’t allow anyone else to do. It turns out that they want to have their choices affirmed, not merely allowed or tolerated, and as far as they’re concerned it’s our job to provide that affirmation. Indeed, even during a pandemic, our primary duty is still to be affirmation-providers to the radical LGBT left.

Samaritan’s Purse, on the other hand, was just trying to help people. If there was any attempt to evangelize, it was by deed and example. Maybe gay activists should try a similar strategy for a change.

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The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  WALSH: LGBT Activists Rallied To Shut Down A Christian Field Hospital. This Is What The ‘Gay Rights’ Movement Has Become.