Hester, backers rejoice over county's plans:  Freeholders to extend benefits Wednesday

BY LAWRENCE MEEGAN, Ocean County Observer, January 22, 2006
 

TOMS RIVER — For Laurel Hester, Friday's decision by the Ocean County freeholders to grant survivor benefits to her partner, Stacie Andree, made her feel like David conquering Goliath.

"I don't express myself outwardly very much," said Hester, 49, under hospice care at home lung cancer.  "But inside I'm thrilled."

"This means everything to me," she said, about the decision.  "As I said in my statements it is the difference between whether my domestic partner would stay in the home we built or become homeless."

After months of protest by gay-rights advocates, the Ocean County freeholders have reversed course and decided to extend pension benefits to Andree, Hester's partner of six years, when they meet again on Wednesday.  The benefit is also to be extended to other members of the Police and Fire Retirement System.

"It's a load off my mind and it means I can spend more time with my wife here at home," said Andree, 30.

Hester, a 24-year veteran in the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, has said without her $13,000 death benefit, Andree will be forced to sell the house they now share in Point Pleasant after her death, which is expected within six months.

The decision by the freeholders to extend the benefits is causing an international celebration, said Dane Wells, Hester's co-worker from 1981 to 1989, who helped initiate the movement to have the benefits extended to Andree.

"Tens of thousands of phone calls and e-mails from at least three continents were sent to the freeholders," said Wells.  "Hundreds of thousands of people were outraged."

Wells said it took incredible courage for the freeholders to reverse their earlier position.

"They are giants among men for having admitted a mistake," he said, though he added he was not surprised by the reversal.

"I know for a fact that every one of the freeholders is a wonderful human being and that's what troubled me before," Wells added.

"It's one of the happiest days of my life," said Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a lesbian and gay rights organization in New Jersey.  "We've been working on this a long time. I'm still pinching myself."

He said the announcement was completely unexpected.

"I drove home from the freeholder's meeting on Wednesday completely devastated, thinking it was over," he said in a prepared statement.  "The freeholders weren't budging and all of us at Garden State Equality gave it our best shot."

"I had so much hope after we taped Laurel on Friday, Jan. 6 for the video we showed to the freeholders last Wednesday.  I'd thought:  this has to move the freeholders.  They're not human if they don't respond," he added.

Wednesday's response was not what he hoped for as the freeholders once again denied extending benefits to Andree.

"Remembering that scene and having emerged from Wednesday's freeholder's meeting to hear those five men once again deny Laurel's death benefits to Stacie, I'd cried buckets on my 90-minute ride home to Teaneck," Goldsteins said in the statement.  "This morning (Saturday) I cried buckets of happiness."

"I'm just delighted by their decision," said the Rev. Linda Holzbaur, pastor of the United Church of Christ in Toms River, who said she was involved in the issue as a minister to see that all were treated justly.  "I plan on being at the next meeting to thank them personally."

"Many of us were thrust in the spotlight over this issue when we preferred to just go about quietly serving our people," she said.

"I feel this is a just solution and I compliment them on their willingness to reconsider.  It takes a person of integrity to be willing to reconsider a stand they took, to look at it broadly and reverse their decision.  It's a reflection on the caliber of the freeholders that they are willing to take that step," she said.

Hester and Andree thanked all the people and groups who helped bring and keep the issue before the public, including the media.

She thanked Garden State Equality for their organizing and rallying support.

"But I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, the person most responsible for this, my first partner at the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, Dane Wells," she said.

Hester noted that most of her support came from heterosexuals.

"That's wonderful because they are the ones we have to educate," she said.  "We're not a threat.  We're not asking for anything special.  All that we want is to be treated like everyone else," she said.

Hester developed lung cancer in October 2004.  A biopsy at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York City showed the cancer had metastasized.  That December she began chemotherapy which she continued until June 2005.  That September she developed a new complication that required surgery and a five-day stay in the hospital.  She entered hospice after undergoing radiation treatments.

"I decided to enroll in hospice, an at-home program, to enjoy the remainder of my life," she said.  While the chemotherapy and IVs have been removed, she still takes medication orally.

"Now that this decision has been made by the freeholders, I'll be able to spend even more time with Stacie," she said.

The two met in 1999 when a friend invited Hester to play in a woman's volleyball league in Philadelphia.

"Stacie was already on a team and to hear her tell it, when she saw me she said, "I want her on my team,' " said Hester.

The friendship built up over time, she said.  Andree moved into an apartment in Ocean Grove in 2001 then moved into Hester's condominium.  Six months later they began house hunting and found a place that required a lot of work, Hester said.

"We put a lot of money into it," she said.  "We totally gutted it, remodeled it and redecorated it.  I'm the decorator, she's the builder."

She said the kitchen was just completed.

Hester said she would like to be remembered by people for three things:

"I would like to be remembered for my 24 years with the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.  I feel I made a lot of significant contributions on some very high-profile cases," she said.

"I would also like to be remembered as someone who stood up for what was right and fought alongside some very courageous people to correct an injustice," she said.

"And I would like to be remembered for being Stacie's domestic partner and I hope I made her happy for the years we've been together," she added.