Can you imagine hating religious people so much that you would rather see people suffer and possibly even die rather than allow religious doctors to treat them? That’s how it is with these New York City progressives. From NBC:

On Tuesday, a group of LGBTQ activists stood several yards away from the Samaritan’s Purse field hospital on the East Meadow lawn and blasted city and state officials and Mount Sinai Hospital for partnering with the evangelical humanitarian relief organization treating overflow patients suffering from the coronavirus.

Activists with the Reclaim Pride Coalition holding signs saying “help not hate” called out New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the leadership of Mount Sinai just across the park, for allowing the organization headed by evangelist Franklin Graham to treat New Yorkers while adhering to an anti-gay statement of faith.

“How was this group ever considered to bring their hatred and their vitriol into our city at a time of crisis when our people are fighting a pandemic?” asked Jay W. Walker, an activist with the Reclaim Pride Coalition.

Um, because the city’s hospitals were jammed, and it was feared that they would be completely overwhelmed? Because when you’re drowning, you don’t have the liberty of griping about the beliefs of the person throwing you the life preserver?

.@Franklin_Graham, no. When my city is fighting a global pandemic at its epicenter, NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR YOU AND #SatanicPurses TO INJECT YOUR HATRED AND BIGOTRY INTO OUR MIDST. Leave. We have far better and TRULY moral options. w/@queermarch #ReclaimPride #HealthNotHate https://t.co/vGyTiZg3WW pic.twitter.com/GkHqL2sNb0

— Jay W. Walker (@jaywwalker1) April 14, 2020

I honestly don’t understand this at all. Samaritan’s Purse says that it will not turn away anyone for treatment — and it certainly should not. If I was suffering from coronavirus and needed to be hospitalized, I wouldn’t care if my doctor were a Gay Communist Atheist who spent his spare time doing readings at Drag Queen Story Hour, and who had accepted Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban as his personal savior. I would be grateful for his service, especially if, as in the case with Samaritan’s Purse staff, he was doing it as a volunteer. And I would expect that he wouldn’t care about my religious and political views either. We would be two human beings brought together by tragedy, and cooperating to save life (my own). If New York City doesn’t want these Evangelical doctors and medical personnel there, then they should leave. But what a despicable attitude these activists have.

It is a fundamentally religious attitude, you know: fear of defilement. The idea that medical services delivered by a doctor or nurses who hold contaminated opinions are themselves somehow transmitters of contamination. If Jay W. Walker were flat on his back, gasping for breath, I bet you he would not turn away an Evangelical doctor. In fact, I bet any one of the volunteers at that Samaritan’s Purse facility has done more in one day to help the sick than the useless loudmouth professional activist Jay W. Walker has in all his life. During a pandemic, activists are as useless as teats on a boar.

You might say: “If Samaritan’s Purse really cared about the sick, they wouldn’t require volunteers to sign a Statement of Faith.” A “Statement of Faith” is standard for many religious schools and organizations, as a way to protect their mission. That’s probably what’s going on here. If I were running a Christian medical charity in a crisis, I would probably simply require that volunteers sign a statement saying they will not openly oppose the religious beliefs of the charity. But really, so what? If an Islamic medical organization wanted to volunteer to care for patients in a public health emergency, and it promised not to discriminate in giving that care, what kind of petty person would I be to complain that all its volunteers had to be affirmatively Muslim?

Besides, there’s a gay guy in that NBC story who filed a complaint with the NYC Human Rights Commission because he applied to volunteer with SP, but was turned away because he wouldn’t sign the Statement of Faith. Yeah, right — that guy really wanted to volunteer there. Please, spare me. Had there not been a Statement of Faith, and he had applied and been accepted, that guy would probably have tried to argue about politics and religion instead of working to help the sick. There is no good faith there, not with those people. I have not seen the Statement of Faith of Samaritan’s Purse, but it is possible that as an Orthodox Christian, I could not sign it. So what! I respect SP’s right to set its own guidelines for its staffers. Rather than bitch about what they are not doing perfectly right, according to my point of view, I would be better off trying to organize my people to serve in ways that are compatible with our beliefs.

These activists are expressing a totalitarian mindset. What makes totalitarianism different from authoritarianism is that totalitarians don’t simply care about what you do; they also care about what you think. They aren’t protesting the quality of care that Samaritan’s Purse is providing, nor are they protesting that SP is turning people away from treatment because of their sexuality, or anything else. They are protesting the religious beliefs that the SP personnel carry in their hearts and minds. That is what these gay-activist totalitarians, like totalitarians of all sorts, cannot abide.

If you think this is just a one-off, think again. This mindset is spreading among activists within medical schools and institutions. Last year, I interviewed a senior specialist at a major medical facility who told me that the facility’s policy on transgenderism was to affirm the desires and fulfill the wishes of those wanting to transition, even if, in the attending physician’s professional judgment, medical transition was not the best course of treatment for that particular patient, at that time. Furthermore, said the physician, he was very careful not to post anything on his social media accounts indicating his religious beliefs or opinions, in any way; he said he knows for a fact that the Human Resources department monitors the social media accounts of staff, looking for any sign of wrongthink.

The reason I found myself interviewing this man is because he grew up in a communist country, and I found him in researching my next book. This information about the policy at his hospital emerged in our interview. He said this kind of thing is common now in medicine. Traditional Christians, Orthodox Jews, practicing Muslims, and other religious believers are going to have to go into the closet professionally, even if their beliefs do not substantively affect their medical practice. Transgenderism is the vanguard of this revolution.

What’s happening in Central Park, then, is not simply a case of a bunch of progressive hotheads making a petty-minded stink about doctors spreading Evangelical cooties. It’s symbolic of a culture war raging inside American medicine. If you read The Benedict Option, you’ll remember the prominent Christian physician who told me that he would not want his children to go into the medical profession, because he expects that licensing requirements in the future will compel them to accept abortion, transgenderism, and other things incompatible with their faith.

UPDATE: A reader sends in this video of a prominent secular New Yorker, investor Whitney Tilson, thanking Samaritan’s Purse for the work they’ve done in the city on coronavirus. Thank you, Whitney Tilson!