Deported
U.S. Immigration separates partners

On the morning of Jan. 22, 2009, Helaman Iquique left his home in West Milwaukee, headed for his job at a plumbing supply company. He said goodbye to his partner of 10 years and their dogs, Bibi and Boogie.

It was a routine beginning to an ordinary snow-covered Milwaukee winter day. But it was to have an extraordinary ending: Iquique never returned home. Neither his partner nor his large extended family in the Milwaukee area has seen him since.

Without any warning and despite the fact that he had an appeal pending before an immigration court in Miami, Iquique, 40, was detained by Immigration and Naturalization Service officials and forcibly sent to Guatemala, where he hasn’t lived since childhood. He was put on a plane just an hour before a judge ordered a stay in his deportation.

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Students, faculty increase pressure on Marquette

Marquette students and faculty have stepped up their effort to get university officials to apologize to lesbian scholar Jodi O’Brien and reinstate their offer to make her dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

After O’Brien signed a contract for the position, Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki and other church leaders complained that her academic writings on lesbian sexuality, gay partnership and the nature of the family were inconsistent with the school’s Roman Catholic mission. University president Fr. Robert A. Wild subsequently rescinded the offer, setting off a wave of protests by students and an outcry from faculty members.

In a full-page ad that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 24, dozens of faculty members at Marquette and Seattle University, a Jesuit school where O’Brien has taught for 15 years, condemned Marquette’s decision and called on administrators to apologize and re-extend the job offer. Faculty members from many departments of both universities signed the letter.

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AIDS Quilt panels coming to MAM

From June 8 to June 20, Milwaukee area residents and visitors will be able to see a portion of the AIDS Memorial Quilt for the first time in more than four years. The AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin and the Milwaukee Art Museum have joined forces to co-sponsor the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt exhibition, with the support of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation Johnson and Pabst LGBT Humanity Fund.

The AIDS Quilt will be displayed concurrently with “American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection.” The museum decided to exhibit nine panels from the AIDS Quilt as a complement to that collection of Colonial quilts.

“After we knew that we were having this more traditional quilt exhibition, we really wanted to also make a more contemporary show,” said Mel Buchanan, assistant curator at MAM.

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Stamped with Pride

In support of the LGBT community and PrideFest, the U.S. Postal Service has created the first-ever pictorial cancellation mark to commemorate the state’s largest LGBT event.

Postal workers will staff a kiosk at PrideFest, where they will stamp the cancellation mark on mail submitted by festivalgoers. The kiosk will not sell postage, but people can take pre-stamped letters and postcards to be cancelled and posted June 11, from 3 to 6 p.m., and June 12-13, from noon to 4 p.m.

In addition to the pictorial cancellation, PrideFest stamps will be on sale at the merchandise booth.

Designed by PrideFest board member Paul Masterson, the stamp features the PrideFest logo over a rainbow flag background.

PrideFest board president Scott Gunkel called the cancellation “an incredible honor.”

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