Wisconsin State Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa Comes Out as Bisexual

Wisconsin State Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa came out as bisexual in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Gay Politics reports:

The only Hispanic member of the Wisconsin legislature, Zamarripa becomes its third openly LGBT member currently serving.

Zamarippa admitted dodging rumors about her sexual orientation when her opponents brought it up:

“It has always been my goal in office to be transparent and honest with my constituents. But before the primary in 2010, I didn’t have the valor and courage to come out. I feel remiss that I didn’t come out then."

Zamarippa said that she came out because she felt a need to be a role model for young people:

She said as a young woman in her 20s, she didn’t even feel safe enough to write about her bisexuality in her personal journal. “When Ellen (DeGeneres) came out that was when I felt I could write in my journal about it,” she said.

It’s also more difficult to come out as the “B” in the LGBT acronym, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, she said.

“It’s tough for people to wrap their minds around that, but it is a reality and the truth,” she said.

At 36, Zamarripa said she remains single and secure in her identity. “It’s part of my life, like being a south sider and the only Hispanic in the Legislature, and I’m happy to share it with my constituents.”

Groupon Cancels Offer for Tour of Milwaukee 'Hunting Grounds' Where Jeffrey Dahmer Met His Victims

Groupon has canceled a grotesque deal offering a deep discount on a walking tour of the Milwaukee "hunting grounds" where Jeffrey Dahmer met his victims, the AP reports:

Groupon offered two tickets for $25, instead of the normal $60, and called the 1-mile, 90-minute tour a “spine-chilling glimpse” into Dahmer’s life. But only 15 tickets sold before the daily-deal website closed the promotion. Spokesman Nicholas Halliwell said in an emailed statement that it was never Groupon’s intention to offend anyone.

The company behind the tours is still offering them, however, despite protests from the neighborhood, where many of the victims' families still live:

Dahmer, a chocolate factory worker, would frequent gay bars in the area. He was arrested in 1991 and admitted to killing 17 young men, some of whom he mutilated and cannibalized. He was serving life prison sentences when a fellow inmate beat him to death in 1994.

His apartment building — where he stored body parts — was eventually razed. There’s been talk over the years about putting a memorial there, but the idea has received mixed reactions.

(via ddm)

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Heroics in Milwaukee

This amateur video of a group of bystanders (some of them off-duty firefighters) who went into action following a car accident in suburban Milwaukee, rescuing a woman and her two children, is gripping, frightening, emotional, and reassuring — that in moments of distress people will rise to the occasion.

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

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Illinois man who stabbed neighbor 61 times acquitted using 'gay panic' defense: "Joseph Biedermann fatally stabbed his Hoffman Estates neighbor....On Friday, a Cook County jury acquitted him of first-degree murder, buying his claim that he was defending himself against an unwanted sexual advance, his mother confirmed Saturday. Biedermann, 30, killed Terrance Michael Hauser, 38, early on March 5, 2008, in the Barrington Lakes apartment complex on Hassell Road, where they lived in separate units."

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Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland in Memoir: I'm Gay

In a forthcoming memoir, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop, former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, acknowledges he is gay and details his struggles with his homosexuality and the Catholic church.

The AP reports: "Weakland stepped down quickly after Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette University theology student, revealed in May 2002 that he was paid $450,000 to settle a sexual assault claim he made against the archbishop more than two decades earlier. The money came from the archdiocese. Marcoux went public at the height of anger over the clergy sex abuse crisis, when Catholics and others were demanding that dioceses reveal the extent of molestation by clergy and how much had been confidentially spent to settle claims. Weakland denied ever assaulting anyone. He apologized for concealing the payment...The revelations rocked the Milwaukee archdiocese, which Weakland had led since 1977. But when he publicly read a letter of apology for the scandal, Milwaukee parishioners gave him a a standing ovation...Weakland, who has been a hero for liberal Catholics because of his work on social justice and other issues, will also address in the memoirs his failures to stop abusive priests. In a videotaped deposition released last November, Weakland admitted returning guilty priests to active ministry without alerting parishioners or police. Advocates for abuse victims said that Weakland's cover up of his own sexual activity was part of a pattern of secrecy that included concealing the criminal behavior of child molesters."

The Publishers Weekly review and a report from Wisconsin's WLUK, AFTER THE JUMP...