public static boolean matchValue(FacesContext context,
    Object value,
    Iterator selectItemsIter,
    _ValueConverter converter) 
{
        while (selectItemsIter.hasNext())
        {
            SelectItem item = (SelectItem) selectItemsIter.next();
            if (item instanceof SelectItemGroup)
            {
                SelectItemGroup itemgroup = (SelectItemGroup) item;
                SelectItem[] selectItems = itemgroup.getSelectItems();
                if (selectItems != null
                                && selectItems.length  > 0
                                && matchValue(context, value, Arrays.asList(
                                                selectItems).iterator(), converter))
                {
                    return true;
                }
            }
            else
            {
                Object itemValue = item.getValue();
                if(converter != null && itemValue instanceof String)
                {
                    itemValue = converter.getConvertedValue(context, (String)itemValue);
                }
                if (value.equals(itemValue))
                {
                    return true;
                }
            }
        }
        return false;
}