I wrote a column for my college newspaper much longer ago than newly appointed state Supreme Court Justice and candidate Rebecca Bradley did when she was spewing vitriol all over the pages of the Marquette Tribune in the ’90s.
When I go back and look at what I wrote at the very beginning of my career, I see a little more innocence and fewer life experiences, but I have no trouble recognizing exactly the writer and person I am today. You wouldn’t either.
That’s why the intentionally provocative, hateful college writings of Bradley are important when she’s a candidate for a full 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, running against Appeals Court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg in the April 5 general election.
That’s because most of the issues Bradley wrote about so viciously come before the court regularly in cases that should be heard by fair, impartial justices who render unbiased decisions based upon the state and federal constitutions.
You know, issues like preventing discrimination and requiring equal treatment under the law for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. The U.S. Supreme Court dramatically underscored legal equality by recognizing that gay couples have the same right to marriage and its legal benefits as heterosexual couples.
But how could any LGBTQ person be assured of a fair hearing before Bradley on issues of equality and discrimination? As a student, she publicly condemned them as “queers” and “degenerates” and cruelly declared that gay people dying from HIV/AIDS had brought it upon themselves through their own “abnormal” behavior and “deservedly receive none of my sympathy.”
When her heartless remarks became public, Bradley apologized “to those offended.” She said she’d written those words “as a very young college student,” they no longer reflected her worldview and “they have nothing to do with the issues facing voters of this state.”
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That last part is simply not true. And she wasn’t just out of elementary school when she wrote so contemptuously about other human beings. She was a college senior.
Bradley’s Virulent Opposition to Abortion
It would be nice to think Bradley has experienced some sort of epiphany of enlightenment since making such vile public pronouncements but her legal career path as president of the local chapter of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society and three rapid-fire appointments from right-wing Gov. Scott Walker to ever more powerful judgeships do nothing to demonstrate that.
Saying she’s become a better person during an election campaign doesn’t make it so. And there are many other issues coming before the court that Bradley wrote about just as offensively.
The issue of abortion is a major one as anti-abortion extremists keep inventing new restrictions to try to thwart the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision more than 40 years ago legalizing access to abortion.
Here again, Bradley engaged in ugly name-calling in solidarity with the most extreme abortion opponents condemning termination of pregnancy for any reason including rape, incest or even to save the life of the mother.
Calling women who make that choice at any time in a pregnancy murderers and baby killers, Bradley equated it with participating in history’s most barbaric mass exterminations, including the Holocaust.
“Where does any difference lie between mutilating a baby in the womb (a legal act) and murdering one’s child outside of the womb (an obviously illegal act)?” Bradley wrote.
“Do not be persuaded by any pleas for a woman’s right to control her body or ‘choose’ to be pregnant or not; they have no moral or ethical basis...” Bradley declared in her role as the self-appointed arbiter of morality and ethics for everyone.
Bradley’s virulent opposition to abortion is important for voters to know because Bradley now refuses to express any opinion on the issue before the election, claiming it would be improper for her to publicly state a position on an issue that is likely to come before the Supreme Court.
Fortunately, we now know Bradley shouldn’t be allowed within miles of participating in any abortion-related case before the court because of her extreme bias. But don’t expect her to ethically recuse herself if she’s still on the court.
When Bradley felt free to say what she really thought, she reveled in expressing outrageous opinions. The election of a moderate Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1992 prompted her to unleash a raging torrent of hate:
“Congratulations everyone. You have now elected a tree-hugging, baby-killing, pot-smoking, flag-burning, queer-loving, draft-dodging, bull-spouting ’60s radical socialist adulterer to the highest office in our nation.... We’ve just had an election which proves the majority of voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil.”
Can voters seriously expect Bradley to make rational, constitution-based, legal decisions for the next 10 years on the Wisconsin Supreme Court after harboring such absolute contempt for anyone who dared to disagree with her own toxic political views?
Maybe Bradley still believes she can count on the majority of voters to be either totally stupid or entirely evil.
