Samaritan's Purse: LGBTQ Discrimination in Healthcare during COVID-19
A month ago, New York City made national news for allowing its hospitals and public institutions to partner with Samaritan’s Purse, led by the notoriously anti-LGBTQ and Islamophobic Franklin Graham, to set up makeshift tent hospitals for COVID-19 patients to assist during this pandemic.
I attended a press conference on Sunday May 3rd to explain Forefront NYC Church’s position on this controversy. I did not get a chance to give the statement due to the police’s actions, so here is what I would have said, with a few added details.
As context, the press conference was held by NYC’s Reclaim Pride Coalition, which had been mounting a series of campaigns to lobby hospitals to pressure Samaritan’s Purse to drop its requirement that all volunteers adhere to its statement of faith, which defines marriage as a union between a “one genetic male and one genetic female.” I was familiar with Reclaim Pride, a coalition built to reclaim Pride as an anti-oppressive tradition, because we, as a church, marched with them in Pride last year. In addition, the main organizer of the conference reached out to Religious Socialism, a group I belong to, to ask if any clergy were willing to be at the conference, which is how I ended up at there.
Hello everyone my name is Sarah Ngu, all pronouns are ok with me, and I’m here as a queer person and as the executive director of Forefront NYC, a nondenominational and largely post-evangelical church in Brooklyn. As a Christian church that is committed to following the life of Jesus and that fully affirms LGBTQIA people, we strongly oppose the requirement of Samaritan’s Purse that all volunteers sign a statement of faith on marriage, and we believe they should not return to New York City after they leave in two weeks unless they drop this requirement. We believe as progressive Christians and as a matter of human rights that healthcare and public services must be provided without discrimination for both the caregiver and the recipient -- that is what we believe Jesus would do, and anything less, is a sin.
I do not make that statement lightly. Many of our congregants, including me, come from evangelical backgrounds and are very familiar with Samaritan’s Purse, having volunteered through Operation Christmas Child or in other ways. As a result, we are familiar with many of the arguments made by defenders of Samaritan’s Purse, who might accuse us of impinging on SP’s religious freedom and of forcing them to choose between their faith and providing healthcare.
But that is false. It is organizations like Samaritan’s Purse who are forcing employees and volunteers to choose between their queerness and serving others, and who have made many of us think that we have had to choose between our faith and our queerness. I think of my fellow trans and queer Christian friends who have attempted suicide because they felt they had to choose due to the policies and beliefs espoused by conservative religious authorities.
People like Franklin Graham believe they have a monopoly on the interpretation of the Bible and doctrine, that their way is the Christian way. I do not deny Graham’s Christianity, nor am I here to argue that the way that Samaritan’s Purse has chosen is not Christian. To do so would be to erase the church’s history of persecution of queer folks and more importantly, it is a fundmental part of my beliefs that no one should be the arbiter of deciding who is Christian and who is not. Progressive Christians like me are accused all the time of not being “real Christians,” and I refuse to engage in the same low-blow tactics.
What I will say is that I’m here as a Christian, representing my church, to show that there is another way to follow Jesus. A way that affirms the urgency of providing healthcare to those infected with this deadly virus, and that upholds the dignity of LGBTQ+ people. A way that affirms the sanctity of Scripture, and that makes space for ongoing, Spirit-led interpretations of its texts. A way that proudly declares that we are here to follow Jesus, and that says you are welcomed and included in this journey with your full self, without any asterisks or disclaimers.
Jesus once compared the hypocritical religious authorities of his time to white-washed tombs which appear beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead. When I see the gleaming, white medical tents that Samaritan’s Purse has set up, I think of a friend of mine who once sat on a white hospital bed in a hospital in South Carolina, on the verge of having a heart attack at the young age of 19, due to the stress accumulated from waking up regularly at 5am, praying for God to change his sexual attractions. I think of Alana Chen, a 24-year-old woman in Colorado who took her life after spending seven years in ex-gay conversion therapy under Catholic priests. So when I look at the white medical tents of Samaritan’s Purse, I can’t help but think: With one hand, they save lives, but with the other, they take lives.
Theirs is a hollow, hypocritical healthcare, and we join the Reclaim Pride coalition to demand transparency from our government on how this partnership with Samaritan’s Purse took place and accountability to ensure it doesn’t happen in this way again.
Forefront NYC Church is actively working to see injustice exposed, and justice done, on many important fronts. We hope you will consider joining us!
Sarah Ngu (all pronouns ok), Executive Director of Forefront NYC Church