She's no Tammy Faye [View all]

Criticism and conspiracy theories swirl around Charlie Kirk's widow Erika Kirk. It is her attempt to achieve a successful widow's succession, like Isabel Peron or Mary Bono, that is generating heat. Turning Point's proximity to the bro-sphere will likely clip her wings, thereby making any widow-bashing on the left gratuitous. Some have called out the Widow Kirk's crying as unconvincing and have therefore compared her to Tammy Faye Baker Messner. I find this unfair to the memory of Tammy Faye and dismissive of Tammy Faye's legacy as an LGBTQ+ icon. We remember Tammy Faye's cartoonish makeup, her strange affect, and her marriage to crooked husbands. But Tammy Faye broke out of the fundamentalist mold when Aids raged and the gay community was under attack by many other so-called Christians. Her historical 1985 interview with Steve Pieters, a gay pastor suffering Aids, is still moving and her tears are genuine. Though her approach now seems dated or naiive, she tried to show WWJD (what would Jesus do?). Two years later, Princess Diana publicly held the hand of an Aids patient, a historic moment in the public understanding of Aids transmission. The clip below is 5 minutes of Tammy Faye's culture-changing interview. Please do not hang the Erika albatross around her neck.

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/tammy-faye-bakker-s-groundbreaking-1985-interview-with-aids-patient-121068613697