Mount Sinai Ends Partnership With Evangelical Group

CENTRAL PARK, NY — The evangelical group that operated a 68-bed tent hospital in Central Park will end its partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital in the coming weeks after criticism from local officials over its anti-LGBTQ beliefs.

The Central Park field hospital run by North Carolina-based evangelical charity Samaritan's Purse stopped accepting new patients Monday and its doctors will finish working at Mount Sinai's Beth Israel Hospital within the next two weeks, Samaritan's Purse and Mount Sinai said in a joint statement Tuesday. The group treated 315 patients since the field hospital opened in late March as new coronavirus cases were increasing in New York City at an exponential rate.

"Mount Sinai Health System and Samaritan’s Purse continue to closely monitor the outbreak, and we anticipate that it will take approximately two weeks to treat these last patients and subsequently decontaminate and remove the tents," the joint statement reads.

Mount Sinai officials had initially offered Samaritan's Purse doctors a chance to continue the partnership by staying on to treat coronavirus patients at Beth Israel Hospital, but the plan drew condemnation from city and state officials. New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, the only openly-LGBTQ member of the senate, called the partnership "a real shame."

Hoylman — who represents neighborhoods on Manhattan's west side — was one of the first New York officials to object to Samaritan's Purse operating in the city. The group's leader Franklin Graham — the son of late evangelist Billy Graham — has made past statements describing LGBTQ people as "immoral" and "detestable." The group also requires volunteers to sign an 11-point "Statement of Faith," which includes the points that "marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female" and that those who are "unrighteous" will face "everlasting punishment in hell."

"I fully support the heroic efforts of the doctors, nurses and medical personnel on the front lines fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. But it's a real shame that Mount Sinai still clings to the argument that the only way to help our healthcare heroes is to allow bigots and homophobes to lend a hand," Hoylman said in a statement.

LGBTQ advocacy group Reclaim Pride Coalition held a protest across the street from Beth Israel Hospital on Saturday, which was disrupted by police enforcing social distancing guidelines. When asked Sunday why police sought to shut down the protest, NYPD Comissioner Dermot Shea said "while we greatly, greatly respect the right of people to protest, there should not be protests taking place in the middle of a pandemic."

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson also issued a statement this month saying, "it is time for Samaritan's Purse to leave NYC."

"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."

The backlash over Samaritan's Purse's anti-LGBTQ stances — which includes requiring volunteers and staff members to sing a "statement of faith" that states"marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female" and that those who are "unrighteous" will face "everlasting punishment in hell" — led Graham to claim the evangelical group was being harassed in April.