Pure speculation on my part: Perhaps there was talk of starting a fund, but those involved with the case requested they not go through with it? It seems to me that would’ve given the Freeholders an easy out in the matter – “Oh, it’s not like she needs these benefits. People are stepping up to the plate for her”.
I can be certain.
Did they express the same concern at the idea of extending benefits to mixed-sex married couples?
So Freeholder Kelly is, what, protesting the “unfairness” of the DP law by withholding death benefits from Stacie Andree? Horseshit.
And another thing:
So Kelly is worried about the cost of benefits skyrocketing, while at the same time calling the law unfair because more people can’t benefit from it, which would cause the cost of benefits to skyrocket even more? Again I say horseshit.
All I can say about your speculative assumption is: I hope it’s completely off the mark. From every account I’ve seen, Lt. Hester has 2 weeks to live; her expenses are ballooning as we speak. If your hunch is correct - and there is no formal charity because there’s a behind the scenes movement to turn Hester & her future widow into faux martyrs - I would label such inhumanity and political shenanigans as the real evil.
I asked first when I said, "Can someone provide a past instance where Ocean County officials have provided benefits to non-married domestic partners? If they have, I’ll gladly label them hypocritical, evil, heartless homophobes". I can’t find any past instance where Ocean County Freeholders extended benefits to non-married spouses - and hence will until I see proof telling me otherwise before branding them wothless, bigoted or homophobic.
The wording in my post wasn’t entirely accurate, I was citing from memory what I had read yesterday. Here it is from the NYT online edition:
The 5 Freeholders have the power to extend benefits to non-married partners - but appear to have decided not to on the grounds it would set an expensive precedent. Kelly’s perceived inequity in the law (disallowing benefits to siblings or relatives) should not have been cited as grounds for withholding monies to Ms. Andree - even if he was trying to make some kind of budget-busting argument about people coming out of the woodwork looking for their slice of the pie.
The Freeholder’s decision is fiscally tight-fisted, cold and perhaps politically ignorant - but I don’t see it rising to the level of heinous, evil or bigoted.
Actually, John, I do, because it works a significant injustice to people who are unable to legally marry. If DPs are the sop NJ was willing to extend to gay couples in lieu of marriage or civil unions, then there’s a distinction between them and permission to make your sibling, your aunt, or your second cousin once removed your legal heir with spousal entitlement.
Beyond that, any true advocate of judicial self-restraint could come up with a very simple process for not setting a precedent: tailoring the award narrowly to the specific circumstances. “Yes, we will grant DP benefits, but only to the DPs of persons (or ‘of only peace officers’) with over 20 years of service who took disability retirement due to a fatal disease.” If sometime in the next 50 years another 20±year cop with a domestic partner comes down with a fatal disease, they have a precedent. But only then.
Whether or not it is bigoted (and I honestly don’t see how denying benefits to someone based either on marital status or sexual orientation is not bigoted), refusing to release money that Hester has earned through over two decades of dedicated service and that appears to be needed to prevent her surviving spouse from losing the home they share is nothing other than heinous and evil.
Whether The Gang of Five has ever denied benefits to a mixed-sex DP couple (if the law even provides for such a benefit, which I don’t know that it does since after all mixed-sex partners have the option to marry) strikes me is immaterial in absolving them of the charge of bigotry. If they denied the benefit because they are unmarried, it’s still bigotry, just of a different stripe. Is The Gang of Five lobbying to change the law to deny survivor benefits to the legal widows of county employees? No? Surely providing this benefit is far more costly than providing it to domestic partners could ever possibly be. So the idea that this is simply a cost-saving measure is IMHO a filthy lie which The Gang of Five is using to justify what amounts to legal theft.
As an Ocean County Resident but not one who pays any taxes to the county I feel the need to chime in but I have no dog in this fight.
Yes I will never be in this situation because if I find someone I want to share my life with I do the the ability to have a legal wedding but that doesn’t have any bearing on what I’m going to say.
Why should the Tax Payers of Ocean County have to pay more over time then tax payers of any other county in New Jersey?
Hester’s retirement fund is from the Police and Fire Retirement System also known as PFRS. Under their policies a member of PFRS can only leave their benefits to their spouse.
If she had a different public job she would have fallen under PERS which is the Public Employee Retirement System. Retirees under that program can give their death benefit to anyone. There is no requirement for them to be related or married.
If anyone should be pitted it’s the leglistature of New Jersey who allows two plans with disparanging benefits to exist and they should merge the PFRS plan into PERS.
I do expect some backlash for this post.
Ms. Hester should just go and legally adopt her partner. Then she is clearly a family member, and heir, and should be able to claim the death benefits. Jack Baker adopted Mike McConnell here in Minnesota in the 1970’s.
Plus is would so piss off those hypocritical freeholders.
See Manny’s post just above yours. An adopted heir, or anyone not a spouse, is not eligible. Only a spouse. (But see below.)
Manny, apparently what the law reads (based on your post and Otto’s) is that the PFRS will give death benefit to the spouse, and can give it to the DP under the new DP law, but the latter only if the Freeholders authorize that. (And I presume the county gets assessed for the cost to the PFRS.)
Why should the taxpayers of the counties whose governing bodies have extended the benefit pay more? Why should those of us who can’t benefit from all of the various federal and state benefits that go along with legal marriage have to help pay for them?
So, are they basically using the gay population as a money saving device? They’re counting on a certain percentage of the population to never marry. Otherwise, if all their gay/lesbian officers ran out and married members of the opposite sex, they’d have no choice but to pay up.
If the program itself is too expensive, then that needs to be looked at, but you don’t get to cut out a specific segment of the population to save money.
I swear, I used to be tolerant and understanding about this shit, but the older I get, the more I think the fundies have got the right battle tactics. With us or against us. Anyone not for equal rights is a bigot in my eyes because there is no earthly reason to be otherwise.
Good news: they’ve changed their minds.
I will admit that I am ignorant of the exact facts in the matter but my understanding is if the board votes to give the benefits the county wold be the actual ones paying the benefits and not PRFS
The tax payers of any county should not have to pay more. I fully support the right of two adults to legally marry each other no matter if it is man marrying a woman, a man marrying another man a woman marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman.
That is good news. I am glad that she is winning her fight. I am also pleased that there may be a change in the regulations allowing everyone in the police and fire pension fund to give their benefits to a domestic partner. That is the only outcome that is fair to everyone. Passing a bill to change the rules for one person while it may appear to be the right thing to do isn’t always the correct or best way to do it. I know this will help ease the mental pain of what time she has left in this world.
Update: Approximately three weeks after finally persuading the freeholders to do the right thing, Laurel Hester has passed away.