Wisconsin state Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote in a column more than 20 years ago that gay people are “degenerates who basically commit suicide through their behavior,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Bradley made the comments in columns she wrote for the Marquette Tribune in 1992 as a student. The columns were surfaced Monday by progressive activist group One Wisconsin Now.
Bradley, who was appointed to the court in October by Gov. Scott Walker (R) and faces election in April, apologized for the columns on Monday.
“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,” she said in a statement, according to the Journal Sentinel. “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 accused One Wisconsin Now of conducting a “blatant mudslinging campaign to distract the people from the issues at hand,” according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
Bradley made numerous disparaging comments about gay people in her student newspaper columns.
“How sad that the lives of degenerate drug addicts and queers are valued more than the innocent victims of more prevalent ailments,” she wrote in a column arguing that gay people are better off getting AIDS than cancer because the disease receives more funding, according to the Journal Sentinel.
“But the homosexuals and drug addicts who do essentially kill themselves and others through their own behavior deservedly receive none of my sympathy,” Bradley wrote in another column excerpt publicized by One Wisconsin Now.
She also wrote that people were either stupid or evil to vote for Bill Clinton.
“We’ve just had an election (in 1992) which proves the majority of voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil,” she wrote, according to the Journal Sentinel.
