In reversal, dying officer wins partner benefits

[italiangm]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/20060124/...artnerbenefits

After nearly a year of rejecting a dying police officer's pleas, lawmakers in Ocean County, N.J, abruptly changed course and agreed to allow Lt. Laurel Hester to transfer benefits to her partner, Stacie Andree.

The decision came during a political teleconference Friday among the five-member panel of county freeholders and Republican county leaders -- two days after denying the cancer-stricken lieutenant's final appeal.

In addition to planning to vote in favor of Hester on Wednesday, the freeholders will allow other members of the police and fire retirement system to extend their benefits to whomever they choose.

[...]

Hester, whose inoperable lung and brain cancer give her only weeks to live, garnered a great deal of public sympathy as her health deteriorated rapidly throughout the yearlong debate. At an emotionally charged meeting in Toms River, N.J., earlier in the week, her videotaped appeal was played for lawmakers in a packed room that consisted mostly of Hester supporters. The frail Hester explained to the freeholders that without the pension her 30-year-old partner would be unable to keep the home they share.

[...]

"New Jersey is a very progressive state on gay rights, but Ocean County is one of the conservative exceptions," Goldstein told PlanetOut Network. "This issue moved beyond LGBT activists to rank-and-file citizens and even those who were not pro-gay rights. People were outraged that this was being done (to Hester)."

[tivodan1116]

good news. Regardless of the thinly veiled discrimination and ignorant, supposedly religiously-based attacks which I'm sure will be used to disagree with this move here and elsewhere, this is an issue of personal liberty.

What they have stated here is this:

My pension is a benefit given to me by my employer as a part of my compensation package (no strings attached), and, like my salary, I can choose to use (or not use) it however I please.

A rare win for personal liberty.

[italiangm]

Quote by: tivodan1116 good news. Regardless of the thinly veiled discrimination and ignorant, supposedly religiously-based attacks which I'm sure will be used to disagree with this move here and elsewhere, this is an issue of personal liberty. What they have stated here is this: My pension is a benefit given to me by my employer as a part of my compensation package (no strings attached), and, like my salary, I can choose to use (or not use) it however I please. A rare win for personal liberty.

I agree. This is the same argument I've used in the gay marriage thread.