World famous Gideons International, a Christian group that is well known for distributing Bibles to hospitals and hotels all over the United States, is now being blocked from fulfilling that very mission by a large hospital system located in rural Georgia. The reason? It’s all because of brand spanking new diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, say several sources that are close to the situation. It’s not enough these garbage policies will end up hurting private businesses, now they want to ensure those who are sick or dying face their situation without the comfort of God’s Word. How sick and twisted are these people?
Here’s more from The Daily Wire:
Gideons, which distributes its free Bibles to not only hospitals, but also various other locations like hotels, and jails, is now blocked from servicing the Phoebe Putney Health System, which serves hundreds of thousands of people in over 40 Georgia counties and is one of the state’s largest healthcare providers. Gideons hasn’t had its Bibles in the system’s hospitals for months after maintaining a working relationship for several years, according to sources who spoke with The Daily Wire.
The policy raises questions about why inclusion policies would be used to exclude Christians from sharing Bibles with those who are sick or on their deathbed. It also raises questions how such a policy could be in place in a place referred to by locals as the “belt buckle” of the Bible belt.
Gideons was founded in 1899 and has distributed over 2 billion Bibles in more than 95 languages to 200 countries and territories. It is most well known for placing Bibles in night stands in hotels across America with about a million being distributed every year to hotels and motels.
A source who is close to the situation stated that Gideons was first limited during the response to the COVID pandemic from going inside Phoebe. After the restrictions were finally relaxed, Gideons was still barred from entering as they were attempting to resume their work just last year. The folks working for the organization were told the work they were doing was “a violation of the DEI policy and they would no longer be allowed” inside the facilities in Phoebe.
The source also stated that it’s obvious the new policy is “anti-Christian,” going on to say that citing DEI in order to place restrictions on Gideons does not make sense because Christians were being excluded instead of included. In other words, if DEI is really all about diversity and equity, why are Christians being singled out? Good question, right?
Neither Phoebe’s communications team nor its chief DEI officer responded to multiple requests for comments. Scott Steiner, the CEO of Phoebe, is aware of the exclusion of the Gideons from Phoebe facilities, as are several members of the board of the health system, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The source said that hospital policies started to take a leftward drift when Phoebe brought on Steiner as CEO back in 2019, which is evidenced by the fact that he has pushed DEI principles throughout the health system since taking the helm of Phoebe. Steiner is a member of the Georgia Diversity Council, which describes itself as the “premier resource for diversity best practices and leadership development in the state of Georgia.”
In comments made in the past, Steiner has stated that his staff managers aren’t diverse enough and that he would be taking action to change that.
“We have an incredibly vibrant and diverse workforce that is representative of the communities we serve,” he went on to say during the health system’s diversity council’s first meeting in January 2022. “In some areas of our organization — like on our management team — that diversity has been less evident, and we are committed to looking at ways to making meaningful change.”
The bottom line here is that when it comes to DEI, everyone is meant to be included, so long as they aren’t white, Christian, straight, and male. Funny how a group of policies are supposed to be all about getting rid of racism and inequality actually create the very thing they are trying to get rid of, isn’t it?