Don't Give Up When You're On The Brink Of A Miracle ... Tammy Faye On Her Birthday

Sometime in the early 1980s, The Husband called me to the TV to catch The Jim & Tammy show with the demented hosts- Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker. We laughed & cried until our mascara was running down our cheeks & on to our summer white clothing. In that moment, I would not have believed 25 years later, I would actually shed a real tear when it was announced that Tammy Faye La Valley Bakker Messner had passed over to the other side.

When she was 6 years old she found Jesus, when she was 16, she found makeup, & she stayed with both them through her 65 years of this incarnation. When Tammy Faye sadly passed away in summer 2007, the outspoken, diminutive, fake eyelash wearing, emotive evangelist had gone from ridiculous Christian TV host to vilified woman to the highest honor- Gay Icon.

Tammy Faye is a Gay Icon because of her fabulousness & honesty. She is celebrated for her perseverance. She fell from grace & lost her fortune when her husband- Jim Bakker, was found cheating on her & swindling their followers out of $158 million. Tammy Faye talked plainly about her pain on TV & she stood by her man after his conviction. 3 later, she divorced Bakker, who was serving a 45 year prison sentence. In 1993, she married Roe Messner (after he had divorced his wife), a wealthy contractor & former business associate of Bakker. Bakker’s sentence was eventually reduced, & he was paroled in 1994. In 1996, Messner was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for bankruptcy fraud. How Nicky Arnstein is that?

Tammy Faye by Martin Schoeller

Tammy Faye is a Gay Icon because she refused to change her unique style of runny mascara & garish jewelry to suit her Christian critics. Tammy Faye:  "Without my eyelashes, I wouldn't be Tammy Faye. I don't know who I would be."

Tammy Fay had long refused to denounce homosexuals on the PTL broadcasts & she had urged understanding & sympathy for those suffering from AIDS. Tammy Faye: "When we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, & I will always love them for that."

When the Bakkers were living the good Christian life, they enjoyed 2 lavish homes & matching Rolls Royces & an air-conditioned dog house. Tammy Faye’s travails with drugs & depression made her a target of tabloid talk.

When Tammy Faye became a camp figure, making her the subject of many a drag queens’ creations, he embraced her gays. She began attending gay pride events, & in 1996, she became the co-host of a syndicated television talk show with openly gay actor- Jm J. Bullock.

Tammy Faye: “I refuse to label people. We’re all just people made out of the same old dirt, & God didn’t make any junk.”

In 1996, Tammy Faye was diagnosed with colon cancer. She was told in 2004 that it had spread to her lungs. She was & funny about her illness on TV. In her 2003 memoir- I Will Survive ... And You Will, Too!, Tammy Faye wrote: “I want my funeral to be a real happy time. I want everybody laughing and remembering how crazy I was.”


Tammy Faye would have been 70 years old today.

Born On This Day- June 9th... Father Macolm Boyd

Today is the 88^th birthday of Malcolm Boyd: Bestseller author of over 30 books, Gay Elder, Episcopal Priest for 50 Years , Civil Rights & Antiwar Activist; a “Freedom Rider” in 196l, 3-Term President of PEN Center USA West, Production Partner of Mary Pickford in PRB, Inc., & President of the Television Producers Association of Hollywood.

In 1976 Boyd announced his homosexuality in a NY Times interview. The gay movement was starting to fulfill it’s promise , & he wanted to be part of it. But the gay movement, the church, the world, didn’t know what to do with a gay celebrity who was also a priest. Too open for religion, & too religious for being gay, Boyd now found that more doors had closed than were opened. He had no choice but to keep on running.

"This is a homosexual bar, Jesus. It looks like any other bar on the outside, only it isn't. Men stand 3 & 4 deep at this bar, some just feeling a sense of belonging here, others making contacts for new sexual partners. This isn't very much like a church, Lord, but many members of the church are also here in this bar. Quite a few of the men here belong to the church as well as to this bar. If they knew how, a number of them would ask you to be with them in both places. Some of them wouldn't, but won't you be with them too, Jesus?"

This audacious meditation from Boyd's much praised 1960s collection of prayers, "Are You Running With Me, Jesus?", speaks not only for the gay man in the bar but of the author's yearnings as well. Spanning the sacred & the secular, the political & the personal, has been his life work.

Boyd lives with his husband, writer Mark Thompson, in LA where he is Poet-In-Residence at St. Paul’s Cathedral.