Orrin Hatch (22 March 1934-23 April 2022) was a Republican US Senator from Utah from 3 January 1977 to 3 January 2019, succeeding Frank Moss and preceding Mitt Romney.
Biography[]
Orrin Hatch was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 22 March 1934, growing up in a poor family; two of his siblings died in infancy, and another one was killed on 7 February 1945 when the B-24 he was aboard was shot down over Austria during World War II. He graduated from Brigham Young University and the University of Pittsburgh, and he moved to Utah in 1969 to practice law. In 1976, he was elected as a US Senator, and he was among the first to rally conservative Christians and Mormons, most notably on the anti-abortion platform. He also opposed same-sex marriage, the Paris Agreement, and homosexuals being allowed to teach. Hatch criticized Donald Trump's sexist comments concerning women and his pro-Nazi views, saying that his brother did not die so that Nazism could be acceptable in the USA. He retired in 2018, and Mitt Romey was elected to succeed him. He died in 2022 at the age of 88.