Maumee Municipal Judge Dan Hazard expressed reprehensible views about gay people in a column he wrote as a college student 27 years ago.
It was revealed last month that as a college sophomore at Ohio State University in December, 1992, Mr. Hazard wrote a letter in the student newspaper, the Lantern, suggesting that all AIDS research be cut off because “95 percent of those inflicted with the deadly disease pretty much deserve it anyway.”
He wrote a second letter in April, 1993, in response to a gay-rights march that drew hundreds of thousands of participants, citing statistics indicating the average age of death for a person with AIDS was 39.
“I beg of the homosexual community one thing: Please keep your AIDS to yourselves,” he wrote.
Tolerance for the LBGTQ community has come a long way since 1993. Even by 1993 standards, Mr. Hazard’s words are shockingly hateful.
When confronted with his college writings, the 47-year-old judge and former Maumee city councilman said the right things. He apologized. He said he would offer no excuses or justifications for what he had written in his college newspaper.
He said his views as a grown, professional adult have certainly evolved from those of his younger self. He said he loves his gay and transgender family members and friends and that he has faithfully represented gay clients as an attorney. And he pointed out that one of the first marriage ceremonies he performed as a judge was for a same-sex couple.
Given time on the bench, ideally Judge Hazard will be able to demonstrate in his rulings and in the way he treats everyone who comes to court that he is who he says he is now, not who he was in college.
Judge Hazard should embrace every opportunity to show that he is a better man now than he was then. But he should also be given the opportunity to do that. We have to believe that growth and redemption are possible for all human beings.
First Published February 8, 2020, 5:00 a.m.
