Guest post by tf
Lieutenant Laurel Hester, an investigator with the Ocean County, New Jersey, prosecutor’s office, is gravely ill, and would like for her same-sex domestic partner of six years to be able to inherit her pension benefits. If she were a state employee, it would not be a problem. If she were an employee of Union County, or of one of a number of other counties in New Jersey, it would not be a problem. But in Ocean County it is a problem because of these men:
From left to right, they are Gerry P. Little, John P. Kelly, James F. Lacey, Joseph H. Vicari, and John C. Bartlett Jr., and they are the Freeholders of Ocean County. They refuse to extend health and pension benefits to domestic partners.
Why? As Margaret F. Bonafide reports in the Asbury Park Press:
Kelly said… that he feels “marriage is a holy union between a man and woman.”
I haven’t quite figured out how granting pension benefits to a couple would cause them to become married.
Technorati Tags: John P. Kelly, Laurel Hester, New Jersey, Ocean County, tf
