Need a good demonic laugh? Then watch Karl and Judy Schowengerdt talk with the Iowa Family Policy Center about how their son was “recruited” into the homosexual lifestyle. Karl and Judy were so kind to continue loving their son, they write, even after he contracted AIDS — and forced taxpayers to cough up $250,000 for his treatment! Now their son Randy is dead, and they’re using his death as a cause célèbre to champion anti-gay activism. He must be smiling down from heaven.
Family
2 Parents Congratulate Themselves for Loving Their Gay Dead-From-AIDS Son
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J
Fucking sick cunts.
Sampson
Queerty, is this tone really necessary? Has it been decided that this is the new editorial tone and style?
Scott
Marriage Equality = HIV?
Throw that against a wall and see if it sticks.
Amber LeMay
The funeral scene from “Heathers” comes to mind… “I LOVE MY DEAD GAY SON!!!”
Bob
These are the 2 of the sickest FUCKS I’ve ever seen. Their son dies and they are apologizing that it cost taxpayers $250,000 to help keep him comfortable in his last days! I hate to say it but he is probably better off where he is, than to be alive and have these 2 “Christians” as parents who would undoubtly dog him to his dying day about being Gay. There is a special place in Hell for these two!!!! I’m sure they will meet the great Jerry Falwell there too!!!!
Alec
@Sampson: Read their letter. The tone is appropriate.
HomoWithNoJob
I don’t know who I am more disgusted with; the parents for exploiting the tragic death of their son in this fashion or at Queerty for posting such a disgusting piece and claiming to get ” a good demonic laugh at.” Shame on you. Take this post down.
rigs
disgusting!
dfrw
I am happy they are not my parents. Horrible people, and they’re being used by Christians to advance hatred and bigotry.
Alec
@HeteroDefenseLeague: Then you should support monogamous marriage for gay couples and institutionalize it. Problem solved.
Nick
@Alec: Where is this letter?
Jimmy
Karl L Schowengerdt
2017 Prospect Ave
West Des Moines, IA 50265
Alec
@Nick: The post links to it: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090428/OPINION01/904280350/1036/Opinion
Some choice quotes:
Geoff
I don’t think there’s anything wrong w/the tone of this article. These people are sick in a very perverse religious way. They clearly learned nothing about their son nor from his experience which is tragic. I have no sympathy for people of this sort. I have more of a beef of queerty using the wrong ‘their’ when it should have been ‘they’re’ in the article lol…..but I’m not going to lose any sleep over that either.
TANK
This is beyond despicable. People like this shouldn’t be allowed to have children. I hope their deaths are long, painful and humiliating.
rogue dandelion
well i don’t think i need to read or watch this.
I don’t think i’d be laughing in any fashion. It just seems outrageous and depressing.
Alec
@Geoff: Good catch on “their.”
Did Japhy proof read, too?
CondeNasty
Truly tragic that nothing was learned by the parents. And to be apologetic about the monetary cost to the taxpayers is just plain sad.
Bruno
B-I-G-O-T-S
I wonder if the Des Moines Register would print something from a couple who claimed their mixed race grandchild died because God disapproves of the “lifestyle” of mixed race people.
Alec
@Bruno: Never. I bet the bigots would be astounded that you dare compare their bigotry to the bigotry of racists.
Bruno
@Alec:
The bigots would be astounded, yes. But the relatively liberally DM Register and all the other media outlets need to start thinking about these things.
Alec
@Bruno: I agree.
Bob
It’s evident from reading the angry comments that the truth hurts. Don’t run from it. Face it head on and find the freedom you crave.
Virilene
Heartbreaking to watch–heartbreaking that they lost their son, heartbreaking that they contributed to his death, heartbreaking that they learned nothing, realized nothing, failed to gain any understanding whatsoever about how they themselves were part of the cause of their son’s sad life.
And the saddest thing is that with this video ‘testimony’, they’re trying to perpetuate the hatred and abuse of gays and lesbians, trying to help to kill other young men and women just as surely as they helped to kill their own son.
I feel pity for them–pity for their loss, pity for their ignorance, pity for their empty, lying souls, pity for their misplaced shame and misplaced loathing. But here is the hurtful truth: they are liars, and bigots, and murderers, just like all the other fundamentalist faux-christian believers. They are hopeless.
herewegoagain
I want to see the video he makes after his cunt wife dies and he lists her burdens on the social welfare & healthcare system in this country.
Maybe she will die of AIDS and he can apologize to us for both his and her stupidity.
The “my son said homosexuality is a cult” thing seems like a fucking lie. If anything, he was trying desperately to get his shit-head parents to love and accept him.
Poor guy…and poor guys who are/have been in the same situation. Maybe one day we will know true compassion and sympathy in this world.
Mr. & Mrs. Fucktard, if you ever read this:
If I am unfortunate enough to have such a horrid demise and forced to spend my last 7 days with you, you can bet your fucking last dollar that I will save your 100K in hospice care treatments and shoot myself in the head. I’ll try not to destroy your precious moments figurines and crochet doilies. Cunts.
ferngully
Is that a gay themed Progressive Insurance ad up in the right hand corner?
getreal
These people have gone through just about the worst thing that can ever happen to a person and they have gained zero perspective. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
Alec
@Bob: Yes, the truth hurts. Bigotry is ugly.
james
As a gay teen, both the video and the letter are hurtful. Being gay didn’t kill their son, having unsafe sex did. I can assure you that people who share their beliefs are much, much more hurtful and “detrimental” than the gay lifestyle.
Even though this is all true, please do not post comments about wanting them to die in agony and go to hell. Comments like these make you just as bad as people who say that being gay is harmful to communities and families.
Really?
If this weren’t such a serious subject matter this would be a SNL parody skit. What does gay marriage have to do with the poor choices their gay son made in regards to NOT practicing safe sex? So many old people from their generation just can’t wrap their guilt ridden minds around the fact that THEY produced a gay child. The level? of denial is pathetic and embarrassing. For them to even bring up the cost created by their dying son speaks volumes about their distorted mindset.
kademonster
Absolute poppycock.
When they see their son in Heaven, I hope they are ashamed for missing out on his life on Earth.
vernonvanderbilt
@kademonster: What makes you think they’ll be going to heaven?
HYHYBT
I hope they do, and believe that they’ll be in for a surprise either way.
Larry
I’m sorry their son died, but I have zero sympathy for them. I read the dad’s op-ed in the Des Moines Register, and it made me sick.
They’re so far-gone that the dad even puts quotes around “lifestyle” when referring to homosexuality, as if that’s how we describe ourselves. It’s so obvious that he’s completely clueless and never tried to understand a damn thing about gay people, let alone his own son.
Poor Randy grew up in the Midwest with parents so venomously homophobic that even his death didn’t teach them anything. So it should come as no surprise that he embraced a self-destructive life and wound up dying of AIDS.
But now, they’re whoring themselves before the media in an effort to perpetuate the exact same environment that killed their son.
What bothers me the most is that people like this go out of their way to hurt us, but they’ve so completely deluded themselves into thinking they’re doing the right thing that nothing will convince them otherwise. Theirs is truly one of the worst forms of evil.
kevin (not that one)
Quote from the video: “Homosexuals are unhappy people”
Umm, hmm. That’s why our parades are so morose.
Of course, the anti-gay folks are just happy, happy, happy with their lives and that’s why they must devote all of their time telling us how unhappy we are. Of course, the anti-gay folks don’t have to worry about being bashed, having their children taken away from them, losing their job or being denied a job, harassed and verbally abused for holding hands, having their relationships trivialized, or being banned from their religious institution…so maybe that’s why they’re so happy?!
Oh, I get it. You attempt to make our lives a living hell by demonizing us at every turn and then, without any hint of irony, feel sorry for us because (you say) we’re “unhappy”.
Maybe we’re unhappy because you “love” us so much!
kademonster
@vernonvanderbilt: i try not to be one of the bitter queens. i think everyone’s got good in them, even if they are absolutely ignorant.
vernonvanderbilt
@kademonster: Fair enough. I’ll just be happy when their generation finishes dying off so we can make some real progress.
HYHYBT
@kevin (not that one): Hadn’t thought about it before, but you’re right: the most permanently, embedded-in-the-wrinkles UNhappy looking people I’ve ever seen are also the most anti-gay. The Phelps bunch, for instance, and that Butter guy from Utah. They look like they’ve never had so much as a neutral expression, much less a smile, on their faces in their lives.
Virilene
This sad video keeps haunting me–the sadness on the personal level, but the absolutely epic scale of the hate these people are spewing.
One thing that the father said about gay people not coming to see his son when he was dying–I don’t know what the son’s situation was, whether he was so self-loathing that he HAD no close gay friends, or whether this despicable pair of parents refused to let gay friends visit their son, or what…
…but this doesn’t square at all with what I have observed, particularly in the early stages of the epidemic. In fact, it was the opposite–gay people were the ones caring for their partners and friends, while families often refused to let their children come home to die, partly out of fear, partly out of shame. I had a high school friend who died back in the mid 90s whose parents flat out refused to let him come home to die. He lived his last months with gay friends (far away from home) who took as good care of him as they could. Here 15 years later, his parents have lived sad, guilt-laden lives…the mother so depressed that she has literally gone insane. And now it’s their turn to die slowly and alone.
This pathetic old couple in the video reminds me so much of them it hurts–so beaten down and wracked with guilt, and the way they choose to express their guilt is not by doing anything positive, but by coughing up and spitting out their vile lies and hatred for gays and lesbians. I sense a lot more shame of their son than love for him in what they say.
May they find the forgiveness and mercy that they deserve.
Dan
I’m not pro-homosexuality from a religious perspective, but I do believe that we should allow homosexuals to become married, because such a thing should be their choice. My thinking is that we should let them be as miserable as the rest of us. However, I will also say that these people are horrible.