Dying NJ Police Officer’s Partner Denied Pension Benefits

Posted on | January 19, 2006

It is very rare that I will say something like this, but I wish the New Jersey five freeholders, anything horrible that could happen to them. I want these five sick sons of bitches, Republicans naturally, to suffer in the extreme until they themselves are begging for mercy and then I want someone to spit right in their faces. Why? Because of they are doing exactly that to a police officer, Laurel Hester, who served them and their community for over twenty years until lung cancer came into the picture. Laurel’s cancer has metastasized and is now made its way to her brain. She can barely breathe and is too weak to even attend meetings where she has repeatedly begged these assholes to allow her partner to inherit her pension and such which New Jersey law allows for but left the decision to implement the benefit to municipal governments.

Naturally the freeholders are using excuses like "violating the sanctity of marriage" by withholding the benefits. Of course everyone knows that financial incentives are sacred only when the partners have different genitalia. The official excuse is that they do not have enough money to cover the benefits as if there were so many gay partnerships that would bankrupt them in comparison to the number of married individuals working for the county.

Laurel has the support of many in the community including a conservative Vietnam veteran who wrote a harsh editorial for the Ocean County Observer. He even goes so far as to called the five freeholders evil. I think he sums up the hypocrisy of the situation and the American ideal pretty well with the following:

When I went to war, they told me I was fighting for freedom and justice for all, and we had to fight the evil people who would deny us our rights.

They said we had to fight them there to keep from fighting them here.

Apparently, they were wrong.

This may sound a little inflammatory, but in a situation like this, I have trouble determining who has more humanity. It seems to me that individuals like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy , and David Berkowitz had more humanity to them than these individuals. And yes, those three individuals I listed are serial killers. Why do they have more humanity than the freeholders? Because when they committed their acts, they at least were quick about it in a figurative sense. Instead of just getting it over with or even light torture, for almost two months now the freeholders have watched Laurel deteriorate as her cancer spread and chemotherapy weakened her to the point she had to make her last appeal on video because she cannot attend the hearings in person.

The result of Laurel’s last appeal? Nothing. The freeholders remained firm in their discrimination. They feel no need to extend the benefits and see ne need to change it before Hester dies.

Please feel free to contact the freeholders at CountyConnection@co.ocean.nj.us. Please keep the remarks civil.

Shit like this makes me eternally grateful that I live in an area that will never be controlled by conservatives.

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