Hormel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Swarthmore College and a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School.

[2] In 1994, President Bill Clinton considered Hormel for the ambassadorship to Fiji, but did not put the nomination forward due to objections from Fijian government officials.

[3] In October 1997, Clinton nominated Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg, which had removed laws prohibiting consensual same-sex acts between adults in the 1800s.

[6] Among the points of contention were: Trent Lott, the Republican majority leader, worked to block the vote and publicly called homosexuality a sin and compared it to alcoholism and kleptomania.

"[11][12] Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York found the obstruction of the nomination an embarrassment and urged that Trent Lott bring the issue up for a vote.

[21] Hormel participated in numerous events, including a conference organized in 2004 by Amnesty International in the frame of the Geneva Gay Pride.