Pastor Franklin Graham’ is up to his old anti-LGBTQ tricks again, even as he attempts to help fight the coronavirus pandemic. Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse organization is among the various charitable groups that have set up hospital care tents in Central Park to help patients infected with COVID-19.
Given Graham’s anti-gay history and protestant actions against the LGBT community, many people expressed concern that Samaritan’s Purse might refuse to service sick people from the gay community. Graham vowed to assist anyone needing medical help, but a gay man attempting to volunteer says Graham’s group turned him away.
According to LGBTQNation, when James Finn called Samaritan’s Purse, they excitedly welcomed him to volunteer, but that all changed when the woman he spoke with found out he’s gay,
“Samaritan’s Purse is a Christian organization,” she told him over the phone, implying that Christianity is inherently homophobic. “Didn’t you know that?”
Graham claims fair treatment is given equally to everyone, but that contradicts how Finn says he was treated when he attempted to volunteer at the tent hospital.
Graham’s assurance is also in complete contradiction with his own words. Take, for example, his Facebook page, where he often posts anti-LGBT rhetoric such as support for businesses being allowed to deny services to gay people and biblical quotes that seem to invalidate people who are attracted to the same sex:
“God created man and woman who were made to complete each other. God instituted monogamous marriage between male and female as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society.”
People like Graham never fail to reveal their hypocrisy as they cherry-pick bible verses. Very often, they love to rummage through the book of Leviticus, where God allegedly declared,
“Man shall not lie with a man as he would a woman.”
Whether God really “said” that or not, is something that can never be verified. However, if you read Leviticus, God also denounces, tattoos, body piercings, the consumption of shellfish and pork, hair braiding, the shaving of beards, and women aren’t even allowed in the house while on their period!
When it comes to declarations of what is righteous and what is not, Graham who blames ungodly people as the cause of COVID-19, has zero credibility as far as I’m concerned. He’s aligned himself with the bible while also rallying support behind one of the ungodliest of all men – Donald Trump. Evangelicals like Graham use defensive reasoning when pressed to answer how they can support a man like Trump? They offer the tired, cop-out talking point that God sometimes uses imperfect people to do his bidding.
Well, maybe he does, but there’s imperfect, and then there’s lying, cheating, fraudulence, thievery, greed, deception, fornication, adultery, and divorce – all attributes of Donald J Trump.
Tonight on @FoxNews Justice with @JudgeJeanine, she brought up what I’m sure many people are wondering—Why would God allow this pandemic to happen? This was my response… pic.twitter.com/f7W98W3It6
— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) April 5, 2020
The last time I read the bible, God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for every last one of those Trump traits. So either my bible is missing some pages, or there’s been a new edit written for 2020.
This piece is an opinion piece by one Contributing Writer for Instinct Magazine and may not reflect the opinion of the magazine or other Contributing Writers.