200 urge domestic partner benefits

COUNTY: Won't unilaterally revise contract

BY MARGARET F. BONAFIDE, Asbury Park Press on Nov 24, 2005

TOMS RIVER — About 200 advocates for gay and lesbian rights turned out Wednesday to berate the Ocean County freeholders for not agreeing to allow a cancer-stricken, terminally ill law enforcement officer to leave her pension survivor benefits to her domestic partner.
 

	(STAFF PHOTO: BOB BIELK) Ocean County investigator Laurel Hester listens to speeches at a rally calling on freeholders to approve pension benefits for domestic partners of unmarried employees who die.

And the freeholders responded to the protest, which took place outside the county administration building, by saying they have no intention of changing their position.  They have decided that Lt. Laurel Hester, 49, an investigator with the county Prosecutor's Office for 23 years, won't be able to pass on death benefits to her same-sex partner.

Hester and her partner, Stacie Andree, 30, are registered partners and share a house in Point Pleasant.  Without her pension benefit, estimated at $13,000 a year, Hester fears that after her death, Andree will be forced to sell the house.

Under New Jersey's 10-month-old Domestic Partners Act, unmarried state employees may leave pension and health insurance benefits to a surviving partner, just as married workers do for spouses.  More than 100 governmental bodies in the state have adopted domestic partnership benefit resolutions, including Bergen and Hudson counties' governments.

Weakened by her sickness, Hester sat in a wheelchair at the center of the rally, a blanket over her lap, as she spoke into a bullhorn held by Andree.

"As of this point, my prognosis is not very good," she said.  "I don't know how much time I have left."  But she said the battle over pension benefits — not just for her partner, but for others — had given her resolve.

"This issue has given me cause to fight and to stick around long enough to see this injustice rectified," Hester said.

Freeholder responds

But the issue is not about an individual, said Freeholder John Bartlett in a telephone interview later.  "It is about public policy of the County of Ocean."

Bartlett said the freeholders have no intention of calculating the cost of the request or determining how many other county employees have registered partners and could be affected.

"I am not going to negotiate their contract for them," Bartlett said.  "We are obviously not talking about one employee," adding that other county agencies follow the freeholders' lead.

"I don't think anyone is asking for an additional benefit," countered Dane B. Wells, Hester's former partner in the Prosecutor's Office.  "They are asking to be included in an existing benefit."

Steven Goldstein, rally organizer for Garden State Equality, said the freeholders' response is a "grotesque incident of anti-gay hatred."

"Ocean County Freeholders Where's Your Humanity?" read a sign hung from a recreational vehicle parked outside the board's office.

"Shame on you, Ocean County," read a hand-lettered sign carried by Nancy McNeil, 62, of Toms River, who attended in a wheelchair.  "My sign says it all," she said.  "Who are the freeholders to pass moral judgment on a woman who put her life on the line for them?"

Advocates said they intend to continue the fight at the next freeholder meeting Dec. 7 and will take legal action if necessary.

Jeanne LoCicero of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey said the group is monitoring the freeholders' handling of Hester's request.

"The freeholders have the power to provide these benefits," LoCicero said.  "Mercer County just yesterday passed a resolution for their county employees.  He (Bartlett) is just using (cost) as an excuse not to provide them with equal rights."

"He is just looking for political cover," LoCicero said.

Debra Guston of Glen Rock, an attorney, is working with Hester and said if the freeholders don't pass the resolution they will surely be headed to Superior Court.

Demonstrators at the rally said the county's denying the benefit on a financial basis is bunk.  Studies have shown that granting partner benefits would raise pension and health coverage costs by less than 1 percent, they said.

Lynda Hester-D'Orio of Kinnelon, Hester's sister, attended the rally and said later she was pleased by the "overwhelming" support.  The rally was "exceptionally well done," she added.

Andree said she is "just thankful that Laurel is still with me and we are together."

She emphasized that the objective isn't just for her own financial stability, but that of all domestic partners.

At the rally, Suzannah Porter, president of the state chapter of the National Organization for Women, said the issue was about morality.

"It's about time that people who talk family values start valuing families," Porter said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Margaret F. Bonafide: (732) 557-5740 or bonafide@app.com