Women’s History Month: Tammy Faye Messner
In honor of Women’s History Month 2011, I’ve selected one woman to profile every day from March 1st - March 31st, 2011.
Tammy Faye Messner (aka Tammy Faye Bakker): American televangelist
How sad that we as Christians, who are to be the salt of the earth, and we, who are supposed to be able to love everyone, are afraid so badly of an AIDS patient that we will not go up and put our arm around them and tell that that we care. — Tammy Faye Messner, PTL club
Switching tacks a little bit … I didn’t know this until I saw the documentary “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” but you really were quite progressive when it comes to the gay rights movement. How do you reconcile that with the fundamentalist Christian stuff?
Because I think that’s the way Jesus would be. He loves everybody. I think Jesus loves the rascals. [Laughs mischievously.]
Was there any backlash? I mean, the clip that’s shown in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” where you’re interviewing the fellow who has AIDS and you’re crying because no one will embrace him. When was that, in the ’80s?
Yeah, that was way back. And people wouldn’t even walk into the same room as someone with AIDS. They wouldn’t even breathe the same air. Wouldn’t even hug ‘em. That’s awful.
It is awful. What was the reaction when you did shows like that? Did anyone ever try to stop you?
They never tried to stop me, which was very interesting. I wouldn’t have stopped anyway, but they never tried to. — Salon interview with Amy Reiter
It might seem odd to see a vocal atheist expressing her adoration for one of the symbols of 80s televangelism excess, but I’ve always had a soft spot for her. Clearly, I had major philosophical differences with her, but even today, she’s the only televangelist I can think of who wasn’t a homophobic bigot.
As rough as things are now for the queer community, remember that the climate was so much more blatantly homophobic in the late 80s and early 90s. I know it’s horrifying to see WBC’s “AIDS is God’s punishment for fags” bullshit now, but you know, that thought wasn’t exactly controversial thirty years ago. Additionally, Messner was a Pentecostal, which isn’t really stereotyped as a bleeding heart branch of Christianity. Tammy Faye brought attention to gay AIDS patients and took hypocritical Christians to task for this attitude. Compare this attitude towards that of Jerry Falwell’s, who even in death, still manages to be a bigoted asshole. Despite my ideological differences with her, I have to give her props for treating us with respect and compassion. Maybe I’m getting all mushy in my old age, but it’s hard for me to not be moved by the way she treated the community, especially given how much she had to lose.
Now, again, that’s not to say that she was perfect. She was a human being, she and Jim Bakker fucked up, but I’d rather have a million Tammy Fayes than one more Robert Tilton, Ted Haggart, or Jimmy Swaggart.
After the PTL scandal and her later divorce from Jim Bakker broke the news, she was basically given a giant “fuck off” by many evangelical Christians. This is detailed a bit in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (where she stated that she liked secular TV much better than religious programming), as well as in some of the links below. She passed away in 2007 after a several year battle with cancer.
Links: Website (now a memorial page)
Wikipedia paged
The PTL Club (Wikipedia page)
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Amazon page)
The Porn Star and the Evangelist: The adult film star talks about his unlikely friendship with Christian preacher Tammy Faye Messner. (Warning, there is an annoying, full page ad on this one, but it’s a short piece from Ron Jeremy.)
Tammy Faye says I’m going to hell. (Salon interview - linked above)
Tammy Faye: a fundamentalist of a different kind.
Entry from the Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, volume 1 (Google books preview)
The Words of Tammy Faye: Interview with Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner
The Lies About Tammy Faye
Tammy Faye and the Gays: an Unknown Story
Tammy Faye Messner dies (CNN obit)
A bunch of whiny crap that reminds me why I wish more Christians were a little more like Tammy Faye.
