Madison — Newly appointed state Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote in a student newspaper 24 years ago that she had no sympathy for AIDS patients because they had effectively chosen to kill themselves, called gays "queers" and said Americans were "either totally stupid or entirely evil" for electing President Bill Clinton.
In one piece, she wrote people would be better off getting AIDS than cancer under Clinton because it would get more funding.
"How sad that the lives of degenerate drug addicts and queers are valued more than the innocent victims of more prevalent ailments," wrote Bradley, who then had the last name of Grassl.
GOP Gov. Scott Walker acknowledged Monday he was not aware of her Marquette University writings before he appointed her three times to judicial positions. He said it was clear her views had changed.
Bradley declined an interview request, but in a written statement said she was embarrassed about the pieces she wrote "as a very young student, upset about the outcome of that presidential election" in 1992, when Clinton first won the presidency.
"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," her statement said. "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."
But at the time she wrote for the Marquette Tribune, she relished taking a controversial stance.
In a column that appeared soon after Clinton was elected, she wrote: "Either you condone drug use, homosexuality, AIDS-producing sex, adultery and murder and are therefore a bad person, or you didn't know that he supports abortion on demand and socialism, which means you are dumb. Have I offended anyone? Good — some of you really need to wake up."
Calling Clinton a murderer because of his support for abortion rights, she wrote that anyone who voted for him was "obviously immoral."
That column, as well as two Marquette Tribune letters to the editor she penned in 1992, were unearthed by the progressive group One Wisconsin Now, which distributed them Monday after a Capitol news conference. That group and the liberal People for the American Way called for her to resign from office — an idea Bradley's campaign manager called absurd.
They were released four weeks before voters decide whether to give Bradley a full 10-year term on the court in the April 5 election. She faces Appeals Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg, who decried Bradley for her writings.
They also come as a conservative group prepares to launch a television ad Tuesday attacking Kloppenburg for a ruling she signed onto that allowed a child sex offender to get an additional hearing, though the criminal's attempt to overturn his conviction so far has been unsuccessful. The Wisconsin Alliance for Reform is spending more than $700,000 on the ad over the next two weeks.
The column and letters to the editor include these statements:
■ "Perhaps AIDS Awareness should seek to educate us with their misdirected compassion for the degenerates who basically commit suicide through their behavior."
■ "But the homosexuals and drug addicts who do essentially kill themselves and others through their own behavior deservedly receive none of my sympathy."
■ "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."
■ "I will certainly characterize whomever transferred their infected blood (to a transfusion recipient) a homosexual or drug-addicted degenerate and a murderer."
■ "We've just had an election (in 1992) which proves the majority of voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil."
■ 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."
