Gay Community Tammy Faye

TOPICS: Tammy Faye. Jim Baker. Drag queens. Christianity. Gay community. Tammy Faye death. Tammy Faye and her embrace of gay community, people living with HIV and AIDS, drag queens. Christian approach to gay community embodied by the gospel according to Tammy Faye.
Ian Johnson, Out Now
July 24, 2007

Tammy Faye Messner, nee Baker, passed away last week.

Tammy Faye Messner was known just by her Christian names - Tammy Faye - and in recent years had become a modern media age celebrity, sometimes seen as a sort of freak performer, so it was perhaps easy for some to dismiss Tammy Faye, and what she wanted to say.

Tammy Faye was a committed Christian, and she held some public shame in her own past - from her days as a televangelist preacher with her later disgraced husband Jim Baker.

But as many knew, and some learned just for the first time these past days, Tammy Faye was also a long time friend to the lesbian and gay community.

Tammy Faye had supported the gay community long before many other people in the mainstream popular culture in the US would dare to do so; and certainly long before many Christians wanted anything to do with gay and lesbian community issues.

Tammy Faye, back in the PTL Jim Baker days, was one of the first to reach out to people with AIDS. This was at a time when US President Ronald Reagan could not even bring himself to mention the word AIDS, and most people in US media wanted nothing to do with either the gay community itself nor gay community issues.

Tammy Faye was a person many found easy to disdain, but in her later years she came to be revered by many in the gay community, sometimes even if only for her uniquely over the top sense of what it meant to 'look good'. Drag queens loved Tammy Faye - and Tammy Faye loved drag queens back every bit as much!

But more than the big hair and her panda bear eyeliner, Tammy Faye truly was a genuine supporter of the gay community.

Tammy Faye herself acknowledged last week - in what was to become her last interview with Larry King on CNN - the gay community returned the support to Tammy Faye. At the time after her relationship with Jim Baker had brought her name into disrepute, Tammy Faye told Larry King it was the gay community that had kept faith with her and she was always grateful for that support at one of her toughest times in life.

It was easy for many to see Tammy Faye as a figure of fun, but when you read what she said about her views on the gay community and on reaching out with genuine love to all members of society, I think Jesus might have found Tammy Faye to be someone cut from a true piece of Christian cloth.

Rest in peace Tammy Faye.

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