Today in Disgusting People -- A Twofer

Franklin Graham and his minions move to the head of the line:

The group building a makeshift tent hospital for coronavirus patients in Manhattan’s Central Park is asking all volunteers to read and follow a “statement of faith,” including rejections of same-sex marriage and abortion.

As the toll of the outbreak on New York continues to increase dramatically, Mount Sinai Health System has been working with the relief group Samaritan’s Purse to open a 68-bed respiratory care unit that will begin treating patients as early as Tuesday.

Praised by Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), the tent facility is one of several efforts to expand medical capacity across the city: A 350-bed facility is set to be erected at the Queens tennis arena home of the U.S. Open, while a temporary hospital has been constructed inside a Manhattan convention center.

Yet unlike the other projects, Samaritan’s Purse has asked all volunteers working at the field hospital — including health workers — to pledge to 11 declarations, Gothamist reports, including one that defines marriage as “exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female” and another that says “human life is sacred from conception to its natural end.”

The Christian group was founded by Franklin Graham, a minister with a famous preacher as a father and a history of making incendiary comments, and has specifically sought out Christian medical staff for the tent hospital.

I'm surprised they haven't demanded that patients sign the same pledge.

And then there's this:

As some local lawmakers questioned whether LGBTQ patients would receive equal treatment, a spokesperson for de Blasio told Gothamist that the field hospital must adhere to Mount Sinai’s nondiscrimination policy.

“Our record on human rights is clear; and we are confident that the joint effort by Mt. Sinai and Samaritan’s Purse will save New Yorkers’ lives while adhering to the values we hold dear by providing care to anyone who needs it, regardless of background,” she wrote to the news blog.

I think it's telling that the statement came from de Blasio's office and not Samaritan's Purse.

Things like this are, I think, one of the elements that differentiate the loudly religious from normal people: they can't even follow the teachings of Jesus (see Matthew 25:31-46 for a good summary) without attaching strings, on the order of "you must belief what we believe" -- even to volunteer to help those in need.

Add in Jerry Falwell, Jr., who decided to re-open Liberty University:

As Liberty University’s spring break was drawing to a close this month, Jerry Falwell Jr., its president, spoke with the physician who runs Liberty’s student health

service about the rampaging coronavirus.

“We’ve lost the ability to corral this thing,” Dr. Thomas W. Eppes Jr. said he told Mr. Falwell. But he did not urge him to close the school. “I just am not going to be so presumptuous as to say, ‘This is what you should do and this is what you shouldn’t do,’” Dr. Eppes said in an interview.

So Mr. Falwell — a staunch ally of President Trump and an influential voice in the evangelical world — reopened the university last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Dr. Eppes said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggested Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. An additional eight were told to self-isolate.

What did anyone expect?

Once again,that unique combination of arrogance and self-importance that marks the blatantly religious.