Health Not Hate RPC COVID 19 Response Press Conference
Channel: Reclaim Pride Coalition
Date: 2020-04-15

New York City, April 14, 2020 #HealthNotHate — The COVID-19 Response Working Group of the Reclaim Pride Coalition (RPC), a New York-based activist group which advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, held a Press Conference in Central Park outside of the Samaritan’s Purse tents to discuss details of why Samaritan’s Purse is a bad medical partner for New York City and Mt. Sinai Hospital and to demand that Samaritan’s Purse drop its requirement that volunteers and employees agree to its transphobic and homophobic “Statement of Faith.”

“New York City and Mt. Sinai Hospital must demand that Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse drop its discriminatory and bigoted ‘Statement of Faith’,” said Natalie James, an organizer with the Reclaim Pride Coalition’s COVID-19 Response Working Group. “We were promised there would be no discrimination by the notoriously anti-Islam, homophobic Samaritan’s Purse in its provision of services to desperately ill New Yorkers. But now we find that Samaritan’s Purse has shown discrimination in who it allows to help. New Yorkers trying to help in this crisis should not be turned away because they refuse to endorse Samaritan’s Purse’s exclusionary agenda. Healthcare should not come at the cost of basic human rights.”

Samaritan’s Purse is violating basic moral standards and could be violating State and City Law by insisting that all volunteers and staff agree to their transphobic and homophobic Statement of Faith. The Statement says that “God’s plan for human sexuality is to be expressed only within the context of marriage” and “we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.” The Statement also says that “[God] will banish the unrighteous to everlasting punishment in hell.”

This press conference followed The Cathedral of St. John the Divine’s rejection of Samaritan’s Purse’s 400 beds in their building. According to The Gothamist, the decision to cancel that project was based in part on Cathedral staff members’ discomfort with the discriminatory beliefs of Samaritan’s Purse and “how important the Cathedral is to many different constituencies, including the LGBTQ community,” according to Lisa Schubert, Vice President for Programming and External Relations.

Mt. Sinai Hospital, in an internal memo to their staff obtained by RPC, declared their disagreements with Samaritan’s Purse but begged their personnel to overlook the bigotry. “We implore you to put aside differences and to join us in this fight against a terrible disease.”  Reclaim Pride Coalition demands that Samaritan’s Purse put aside its bigotry and drop its insistence that volunteers and employees agree to its exclusionary “Statement of Faith.”

Reclaim Pride Coalition’s COVID-19 Response Working Group demands:

Samaritan’s Purse drop its requirement for employees and volunteers to sign their “Statement of Faith.”

The New York City Human Rights Commission conduct an investigation of whether Samaritan’s Purse’s hiring policies are in violation of City and/or State Law.

Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio and Mt. Sinai publish their plans to monitor Samaritan Purse’s work for non-discrimination and medical competence.
     
The New York State Governor’s Office and the New York City Mayor’s Office publicize whether Samaritan’s Purse is receiving public money and make clear who approved their Central Park facility.

Hashtag: #HealthNotHate

Website: www.reclaimpridenyc.org
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Twitter: @QueerMarch
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Reclaim Pride Coalition (RPC) is a New York City-based group comprised of LGBTQ+ activists in alliance with dozens of grassroots community groups, nationally and internationally. In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, RPC mobilized more than 45,000 people to recreate the original 1970 Gay Pride march route uptown from Stonewall to Central Park.