Monmouth County
agrees to pension benefits
for domestic partners
By AP from
Newsday.com from the Web, December 24, 2005
FREEHOLD, N.J. Dec.23 --
Monmouth County has agreed to extend pension benefits to the domestic partners
of certain gay and lesbian county employees, an issue championed by gay rights
advocates in the wake of a controversial case in neighboring Ocean County.
In a 4-0 vote Thursday, the county's freeholder board agreed to give employees
of its law enforcement agencies the same choice that other county employees have
in choosing a beneficiary for their pension. The vote amended the pension
rules for law enforcement employees who were previously limited to naming
spouses or relatives as beneficiaries, according to Freeholder Tom Powers.
The change will apply to about 130 people, most of them employees of the county
prosecutor's office, Powers told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday
newspapers.
Monmouth is the fifth county to grant domestic partnership rights -- the others
are Bergen, Union, Hudson and Mercer -- since former Gov. James E. McGreevey
signed the Domestic Partners Act into law last year.
The law benefits to same-sex partners of state workers who live together and
gives local governments the power to do the same.
The Monmouth County measure carries symbolic significance, according to Steven
Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay rights advocacy group.
"It's an extraordinary step," he said. "This is a Republican freeholder
board voting to expand gay rights."
Powers said the county's decision was prompted by Ocean County's refusal to
transfer the pension benefits of 24-year prosecutor's office investigator Laurel
Hester -- who is dying of lung cancer -- to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree.
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