N.J. gay rights
champion dies
Laurel Hester
succumbs to cancer a month after winning
her crusade for
partner benefits
BY MARYANN SPOTO. The
Star-Ledger (nj.com) from the Web, February 19, 2006
As a college student in the late
1970s, Laurel Hester was accidentally outed as a lesbian. It was one of
the most painful experiences of her life.
Some 25 years later, after working behind the scenes as an investigator with the
Morris and Ocean prosecutor's offices, Hester again faced the public as a gay
woman.
Only this time, it was her choice. More than that, it was her cause.
Hester, weak from the lung cancer that was killing her, made a public appearance
before the Ocean County freeholders in December to ask that her pension benefits
be passed to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree.
Her plea put a poignant face on the gay rights movement in New Jersey and around
the nation. The freeholder board, which initially turned her down,
ultimately acquiesced last month, and other counties began changing their rules
as well.
A month after winning the right to pass her pension benefits to Andree -- and
days after the state Supreme Court heard arguments on gay marriage -- Laurel
Hester lost her battle with cancer yesterday. She was 49.
"She meant the world to me. I'm glad what we went through is done with,"
Andree said. "It was the fight that kept her going. ... She's at peace
now. There's no more pain."
After her personal plea to the freeholders failed, Hester made one more attempt
last month. By that time, she was too weak to appear before the board in
person so she sent a video message from her home in Point Pleasant. When
the freeholders relented last month, Hester thanked them publicly from her
wheelchair.
"She really did make a gigantic impact on literally the world," said Dane Wells,
her friend and former co-worker. "She was a very, very private, guarded
person. Something like this was the absolute last thing she wanted.
It took a lot of absolute courage to do what she did."
Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay rights organization,
agreed.
"Laurel Hester was one of the all-time most important figures not only in the
history of New Jersey's lesbian and gay community but in the history of the gay
rights movement," Goldstein said. "She was a valiant, courageous, elegant
woman who even in periods of abject pain was a remarkably selfless woman."
Born in Elgin, Ill., Hester grew up in Florham Park before moving to Ocean
County in 1981. While a student at Stockton State College, where she
helped start a group for gay students, Hester felt the sting of discrimination,
she said in an interview a month before her death.
Hester was the president of the group, but she protected her identity by using a
pseudonym. In a 1977 sports column calling for NFL player and gay rights
activist Dave Kopay to speak at Stockton, Hester was quoted -- by her real name.
After she was inadvertently outed, the North Wildwood police, for whom she had
worked two summers as a seasonal officer, said she wouldn't be needed there for
a third summer.
When she asked why, she was told it was because she was gay, she said.
Hester thought of suing but decided instead not to go public with her fight.
After graduating in 1978 with degrees in criminal justice and psychology, Hester
started her law enforcement career as an investigator at the Morris County
Prosecutor's Office.
She moved to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office 2 1/2 years later, in March
1982, with the caveat that she keep quiet about her sexual orientation, she
said. She largely kept that promise, confiding only in friends who
cultivated her trust over the years.
While in Ocean County, where she earned the rank of lieutenant, she worked
behind the scenes on a number of high-profile cases, devoting most of her career
to organized-crime intelligence. She helped develop information that
investigators in New York would later use for successful prosecutions of mob
figures there, Wells said.
She also worked on narcotics investigations and environmental crime and most
recently supervised juvenile delinquency cases.
"She was perhaps best known for her dedication, integrity and dignity," Wells
said. "She was really a pioneer among women in law enforcement and as such
faced an uphill climb. She very quickly earned the respect of men in her
profession."
As she came closer to retirement, the inevitable questions about what she would
do after leaving the job started coming. She said she didn't dare reveal
her true desire -- to be a resource person for high school gay student groups --
so she'd always make up something.
Her calling to help kids was rooted in her experiences in college. She
said that when she was outed she had no support groups, nothing at school to
guide her through that tumultuous time.
"In the '70s when I helped start that group, that was a huge controversy," she
said. "Now we're seeing high schools on that same level, forming clubs,
filing lawsuits, meeting resistance.
"My dream job was to be a resource person for any school in Ocean County, for
any kid that needs somebody to talk to, needs somebody to listen, has questions,
but is too embarrassed to ask," she said. "Just a place to go to report
incidents. A place where they could get together as a group and realize
they are not alone."
She also was realistic about her dream.
"Oh, man, I think I would have hit a ton of bricks," she said. "There are
about 700 high school (gay) groups across the nation, but that's not nearly
enough. Too many kids are being harassed, beaten. They're afraid to
go to school."
Hester never got that second career, but she still made her mark on the gay and
lesbian civil rights movement in New Jersey when she sought to designate Andree
as the recipient of her pension benefits. Her case inspired other counties
to extend pension benefits to domestic partners of their gay and lesbian
employees.
As a member of the Police and Firemen's Retirement System, Hester was not
permitted to make Andree her beneficiary. New Jersey's Domestic Partners
Act, signed in 2004, extended such benefits to state employees but left it up to
the county and local governments for their own employees.
Knowing she was dying of lung cancer, Hester asked the freeholder board
privately in October to extend those benefits to Andree. The board said
no, citing the increased expense the county would incur and insisting it was a
matter for negotiations with the labor unions.
Hester's situation soon gained national notoriety. Some saw her
sympathetically as a dying woman being denied her last wishes. Others
viewed her as a pawn for the gay rights movement and resented the involvement by
outside groups.
The freeholders relented last month after Republican state legislators from
Ocean County promised to sponsor legislation that would address the pension
flaw. In one of his first acts after taking office, Gov. Jon Corzine
intervened, telling the freeholders he would support a state legislative measure
in the matter.
"I never expected to come out this way," Hester said of challenging the
freeholders. "So I've come full circle."
Freeholder Joseph Vicari said yesterday he was "very saddened" at the news of
Hester's death.
"She was a very dedicated, loyal employee of the county for 23 years," he said.
"We are very proud of her service. This is a great loss not only to the
prosecutor's office, but also for law enforcement."
Although the past few months have been difficult for Hester and the freeholder
board, Vicari said, he believes the freeholders did the right thing in helping
to reverse the inequities in the pension system.
"Fortunately for Laurel Hester, she received what she wished," he said.
"She was a very kind person. Very compassionate."
Hester was predeceased by her parents, George W. and Diana J. Hester.
Besides Andree, she is survived by her brothers, George D. Hester of Harding
Township and James S. Hester of Laurel, Md.; and a sister, Lynda Hester-D'Orio
of Kinnelon.
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