Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley repeatedly apologized what she has written 24 years ago, saying she was frankly embarrassed by the content and tone and that they did not reflect her worldview or current work as a judge.
In a statement, Bradley said, "To those offended by comments I made as a young college student, I apologize, and assure you that those comments are not reflective of my worldview. These comments have nothing to do with who I am as a person or a jurist, and they have nothing to do with the issues facing the voters of this state."
She also said that she is now a better person than then and it will be ridiculous to suggest that people cannot change in the course of a quarter century, according to WTMJ radio interview.
Bradley emphasized that her views began to change almost immediately after her column was published in November 1992. "I got reaction, as I'm sure people can expect," Bradley said. "I started to learn right then the effect my words had, my very poorly chosen words had, on people." She attended the University of Wisconsin law school from 1993 through the spring of 1996.
In her writings, Bradley described homosexuals as queers, and compared them with drug addicts that's they have essentially killed themselves and others through their own behavior. She described newly elected president Bill Clinton as queer-loving and said his 1992 victory proved that the majority of voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil.
She also wrote campaigning against abortion. She stated that life begins at conception and that it is incomprehensible that people could argue that they have a right to murder their own flesh and blood.
"Our society is turning a blind eye to this holocaust of our children, largely for the sake of the convenience, or perhaps the financial concerns of the women who choose abortion," Bradley wrote.
Governor Scott Walker, who appointed Justice Bradley in October last year to finish the term of Justice N. Patrick Crooks, who had died three weeks prior appointment, defended Bradley. He said Bradley has made clear that her views have changed since she wrote the anti-gay columns as a 20- and 21-year-old student.
"I think a good chunk of society has got very different views than they did in college, particularly for someone who (attended) almost a quarter of a century ago," Walker said.
He also believed that it was appropriate that she clearly stated that those are not her opinions now and that they have not been in her professional practice as an attorney nor in any of the judicial positions that she has had.
The liberal group One Wisconsin Now's executive director, Scot Ross, called on Bradley to resign her position on the Supreme Court. Bradley's past writings prove she would be unable to decide a case involving gays or lesbians fairly. "If she has a shred of decency, she will resign immediately," he said.
However, Bradley's campaign manager, Luke Martz, said resignation is an absurd statement. Bradley has attended fundraisers for gay advocacy groups in recent years and donated money to a camp for children suffering from HIV and AIDS.
Bradley is part of a five-justice conservative majority member of the bench.
The column and letters to the editor include these statements, among them:
- "How sad that the lives of degenerate drug addicts and queers are valued more than the innocent victims of more prevalent ailments."
- "This brings me to my next point - why is a student government on a Catholic campus attempting to bring legitimacy to an abnormal sexual preference?"
- "Heterosexual sex is very healthy in a loving martial relationship. Homosexual sex, however, kills."
- "One will be better off contracting AIDS than developing cancer, because those afflicted with the politically-correct disease will be getting all of the funding."
- "I will certainly characterize whomever transferred their infected blood (to a transfusion recipient) a homosexual or drug-addicted degenerate and a murderer."
- Clinton "supports the Freedom of Choice Act, which will allow women to mutilate and dismember their helpless children through their ninth month of pregnancy. Anyone who could consciously vote for such a murderer is obviously immoral."
