Little Help
Pleas from dying
lieutenant go unheard
By DON BENNETT, Ocean
County Observer, December 8, 2005
TOMS RIVER, NJ -- "You have
everything to lose. I have nothing to lose," a dying Lt. Laurel Hester
told supporters who failed again last night to convince Ocean County's
freeholders to implement the Domestic Partnership Act and give her partner,
Stacie Andree, the right to inherit the pension rights she earned after 24 years
as a cop with the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
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Tom Spader Photo
Freeholder
Gerry Little shakes hands with Lt. Laurel Hester of the Ocean County
Prosecutor's Office. Hester's companion has been denied her
pension benefits. Hester has inoperable lung cancer. |
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Hester has terminal lung cancer and
said she came out of the closet only to try to win Andree the right to inherit
her pension rights.
Her supporters and those of domestic partnerships in general tried tears,
begging, reason and praise for an hour and a half last night to convince the
five Republican freeholders to provide those benefits.
The officials left to a chorus of boos when Freeholder Director Joseph H. Vicari
gaveled the meeting to a close still claiming the dilemma Hester and others with
domestic partners in the county face are the fault of the Legislature for not
mandating benefits for all public employees instead of only those who work for
the state.
Steven Goldstein, director of Garden State Equality, said Hester's backers
"tried the carrot. Now we'll try the stick."
He said the gay and lesbian community may boycott Ocean County because of the
decision. And a lawsuit is likely he said, based on Freeholder John P.
Kelly's comment that the Domestic Partnership Act circumvents the marriage law.
That, he claimed, violated the state's Law Against Discrimination.
"They're already cooked," he said.
"We're going to hit them where it hurts the most, in the pocket," he said.
"I anguish with this every day. It hurts me. She worked for me for
24 years," Vicari said. "Why I can't do the right thing now was caused by
the state Legislature," Vicari said.
Lawmakers left it to county and local officials to decide whether they want to
extend the benefits married workers enjoy to domestic partners.
Freeholders in four counties — Union, Hudson, Bergen and Mercer — have done so.
Those in 17 other counties, including Ocean, have not, but the firestorm created
by Hester's declining health and the refusal of the freeholders to extend
benefits here has put the county in the focus of the international debate over
equal rights for domestic partners.
"It's in your power," Goldstein and others chanted as the freeholders ended the
meeting, saying they could vote to extend benefits to Hester and other domestic
partners.
"You have it in your hands to decide if Laurel Hester dies a peaceful death,"
said her former partner in the Prosecutor's Office, Dane Wells of Jackson.
Claiming to a "Piney with a girlfriend," Wells said what the freeholders were
doing to those with domestic partners was no different than the "separate
drinking fountains or a seat in the back of the bus" in the segregated south.
Like those prejudices he said this one is "destined to one day disappear."
"I will happen. Will you permit it to happen in Laurel Hester's lifetime?"
Wells asked.
Her one-time boss, former Chief of Investigators Richard Chinery, traveled from
Delaware to urge the freeholders to change their minds.
"We loved her at the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office. We never asked her
about her lifestyle. Please do something for her," Chinery urged.
"I got my pension. My wife will get my pension," he added.
Goldstein got down on his knees before the freeholders and urged them to "do the
right thing for Laurel Hester. She did right by you."
Hester, sitting in a chair at the microphone, said she had seen "remarkable
changes" since her first plea a few weeks ago for the freeholders to implement
the Domestic Partnership Act.
"New counties, without any impetus," extended those benefits "because of what
they saw going on down here," she said.
"Try being a homosexual female in a male-dominated world," she challenged.
Her supporters sobbed as she thanked them from coming to aid her.
Rev. Linda Holzbaur, a minister at the United Church of Christ in Bayville, said
she heard conversations about Jews and blacks in Ocean County that were
throwbacks to the 1950s.
"There's a lot of room for growth in this county. You have the opportunity
to lead," she told the freeholders.
Holzbaur said the freeholders have a "chance to send a message ... about what
this county stands for."
Other clergy, police, citizens straight and gay, young and old, sounded similar
themes.
"What you are doing to one of your own is disgusting," said Richard Schiff of
Berkeley Township. "Line up with the 21st century. Take advantage of
it or you will live to regret it."
George Farrugha of the Gay Officers Action League, representing cops in New
Jersey and New York, called the position of the freeholders "reprehensible."
"Justice is her job. Examine your hearts," he urged.
Woodbridge Township Affirmative Action Officer James Ringwood said officials
there did not have to be prodded to extend the benefits. "They came to me
and offered it."
Ringwood won three Bronze Stars in Vietnam.
Rev. Bruce Davidson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Trenton said the
actions of the freeholders caused "statewide repercussions because of an act of
injustice. Do justice. Do what's right and fair," he urged.
Gary Black of Jackson Township defended the freeholders, saying they are not
intolerant and blaming lawmakers in Trenton for not covering everyone with the
benefits they gave state employees.
"I'm disgusted with the people here exploiting her," he said.
Karen McFadden of Garden State Equality said the freeholders' concern about the
cost of the added benefits was bogus.
She said there was no more cost to giving Andree benefits than there would be if
Hester "woke up tomorrow straight and married a man."
"Is there no other way to balance the budget of Ocean County than on the backs
of gays and lesbians?" she asked.
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