She interviewed a homosexual AIDS affected person
The HIV/AIDS epidemic had barely been mentioned by the US authorities, not to mention a televangelist couple just like the Bakkers, within the Nineteen Eighties when it reached its peak. However in 1985, Messner invited AIDS affected person and minister Steve Pieters onto her present to debate his prognosis, his religion and his sexuality.
When chatting with Pieters, who was recovering from chemotherapy, Messner began to tear up over his dad and mom’ response when he got here out as homosexual.
“It doesn’t matter what occurs to an adolescent of their life, they’re nonetheless your boy, they’re nonetheless your lady,” she mentioned. “And I feel it is so essential that we as mother and pa love via something.”
After telling Pieters she wished to “put [her] arms round him,” she went on to ask him about his sexual relationships with ladies and whether or not he thought he simply hadn’t given ladies a “truthful strive.”
“I’ve had so many individuals inform me over time these have been such silly questions or such foolish questions, however for her viewers they have been the fitting questions,” Pieters informed KABC earlier this month.
She teared up once more through the interview after Pieters mentioned shedding his buddies, asking her reside viewers and the viewers, “How unhappy that we as Christians, who’re to be the salt of the earth, we who’re supposed to have the ability to love everybody, are afraid so badly of an AIDS affected person that we are going to not go up and put our arm round them and inform them that we care?”
“I used to be in all probability one of many first ever to have a homosexual man on my present,” she mentioned of the episode with Pieters. “And so I feel they do not forget that. They knew that we accepted them.”
She confirmed up for homosexual supporters
All through the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s, she was a daily attendee at Washington’s Capital Satisfaction Competition, even co-judging a Tammy Faye lookalike contest with raucous drag queen Woman Bunny. She assisted homosexual advocacy teams at charity occasions and befriended notable homosexual figures like RuPaul and the filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, and the pair finally directed the 2000 documentary about Messner’s life.
That documentary was largely sympathetic towards Messner and highlighted her reputation amongst homosexual followers — and it helped reshape the picture of Messner from a disgraced televangelist to a pillar of accepting Christianity.
“I say all people have to be who they’re,” she mentioned, chatting with the digicam like she did for therefore a few years on the PTL Community. “Younger folks, do not ever let anybody make you one thing that you simply’re not.”
She referred to as out anti-gay Christians
“I do not consider them as homosexuals, I simply consider them as different human beings that I like,” she tells a shocked Jerry Falwell, performed by Vincent D’Onofrio. “You recognize, we’re all simply folks, made out of the identical previous grime. And God did not make any junk!”
In her interview with the South Florida Solar-Sentinel, Messner mentioned Christians had “gotten distant” from the church’s teachings of acceptance and love for all folks.
“[Christians] have change into condemning,” she mentioned after reasserting her love for her homosexual followers. “It is simply unhappy to me what has occurred to Christians right now.”
The boundaries to Tammy Faye’s help of homosexual rights
“It comes again to this forgiveness factor,” Shulman informed NPR. “When you learn between the traces, she’s not saying to me, ‘It is OK that you simply’re homosexual; she’s saying, ‘I forgive you for being homosexual and once you go off and die, it should be between you and your maker.'”
In a 2002 interview that very same yr with Metro Weekly, Messner was requested what recommendation she would give to a younger homosexual individual whose dad and mom have not accepted them.
“Do not throw your gayness in anybody’s face, simply reside your life,” she informed Metro Weekly. “However I additionally assume honesty is at all times the most effective coverage.”
Messner’s recognition of the LGBTQ group was nonetheless vital throughout her lifetime. Although he was skeptical about her motivations, Schulman informed NPR “we may all stand to study from” her, including, “If you could find it in your coronary heart to like all people, it doesn’t matter what their flaws, then how is {that a} unhealthy factor?”
