Tammy Faye stops cancer treatment

Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, the televangelist who came to embrace gays and was embraced in return, told fans Tuesday that doctors have ceased to treat long-running cancer that had spread to her lung.

"So now it's up to God and my faith. And that's enough! But please continue to pray for the pain and sick stomach," Messner, 65, wrote Tuesday on her Web site, adding that she is down to 65 pounds and needs "God's miracle to swallow."
Messner closed with a message for others who might be suffering: "Don't give up!! . . . You see, God gives out his promises, they do not lie, they do not fail. We do not have to BEG him for them, they are FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Messner and her first husband, former DJ Jim Bakker, grew famous in the 1970s for "PTL" (for "Praise the Lord"), the televised ministry they founded with Jerry Falwell, and for the opulent lifestyle that viewers' donations afforded them. Amid financial scandals and Jim Bakker's affair with church secretary Jessica Hahn, the Bakkers went bankrupt in 1988 and their TV ministry was taken over by Falwell.

Jim Bakker went to jail (where he began a book, "I Was Wrong") and Tammy Faye rebounded.

She had always counseled tolerance of gays, in strong contrast to Falwell and other religious-right figures; now, among her media projects was a 1996 talk show co-hosted by out gay actor Jim J. Bullock. She left the show to focus on treating her recently diagnosed colon cancer. In 2004, she appeared on the reality TV show "The Surreal Life."

A 1999 documentary by out directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," was a hit with gay audiences. Meissner returned the love, premiering a 2004 sequel at San Francisco's Castro Theater, on whose famous rising organ she played the evangelical anthem "Power in the Blood."

"It's very dramatic as it comes up out of the floor and when finished lowers back down under the floor," Meissner wrote on her Web site. "The gentleman that plays it every day set it up "evangelistic style" for me."

Meissner has said she believes publicizing her life and her struggles can bring solace to others.

"Many people ask me why did you allow cameras to film you going through the treatment of cancer?" she wrote. "I think that for too long we have kept the treatment of cancer and other diseases a mystery. I feel that knowledge is power and we need to know all we can when someone we love, or we ourselves, find treatment."

Bailey told Gay.com, "As gay filmmakers, we appreciate her because she has always done what she wanted to do. She is different and she doesn't let anybody keep her from being different.

"There is a point in the life of every gay person when you realize that you don't fit in and you have to make a choice. Tammy clearly made her choice and I totally dig that." (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)
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