Rev. Steven Pieters, HIV survivor & activist, dies at 70
12.07.2023 - 23:51
/ qvoicenews.com
The Rev. Steven Pieters, a long-time HIV survivor and activist who became famous when interviewed by televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in 1985, died Saturday of complications from gastrointestinal cancer. He was 70.
Pieters was hospitalized two weeks ago with an infection, his publicist B. Harlan Boll said.
Pieters was a minister and administrator in the Metropolitan Community Church. He was pastor of the MCC in Hartford, Conn., from 1979 to 1982, then moved to Los Angeles, where he eventually became field director for the denomination’s AIDS ministry.
There, he was diagnosed with AIDS and two forms of cancer, lymphoma and Kaposi’s sarcoma.
In 1984 one doctor predicted he would not live to see the next year.
But he did, and in 1985 he became the first patient in a clinical trial of the first anti-HIV drug, Suramin, which sent his cancers into remission. Use of the drug for treatment of HIV and AIDS eventually ceased due to its toxic side effects.
The Rev. Steven Pieters, left, a long-time HIV survivor and activist who became famous when interviewed by televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in 1985, died Saturday of complications from gastrointestinal cancer. He was 70. Pieters is seen with his publicist, B. Harlan Boll. Photo: James Franklin
That year also saw his interview with Bakker on “Tammy’s House Party” on the PTL network, which she ran with her husband, Jim Bakker. It came at a time when most evangelical Christian leaders either ignored AIDS or called it divine punishment for being gay. But Tammy Faye Bakker had a more accepting attitude, and “she wanted to be the first televangelist to interview a gay man with AIDS,” Pieters told People in 2021.
The interview was conducted via satellite. Bakker wanted him to appear with