Laurel Hester Story Wins Oscar

Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story, which chronicles the fight of a terminally ill New Jersey woman to leave her pension benefits to her lesbian partner, won the Oscar for Best Short Documentary tonight.

Filmmakers Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth accepted by saying, "It was Laurel Hester's dying wish was that her fight against discrimination would benefit all same-sex couples across the country who face discrimination every day." They then lauded Hester's partner, Stacie Andree, who was seated with them in the audience, calling Andree "an auto mechanic by day, but hero by life."

In a truly ironic twist, the nominees and winner for Best Short Documentary were announced via satellite by American soldiers who, if killed in battle, could never leave their benefits to a gay partner. Unsurprisingly, the Freepers are going ballistic, saying the G.I.'s were "set up" and "used" and that the producers of the show deliberately chose them to give the Hester award, intending to embarrass the U.S. military. Let's hope so!

Another great gay moment came at the end of the show when No Country For Old Men producer Scott Rudin thanked his partner. "Without you, honey, this [holds up Oscar] is
just hardware."

Other Oscar winners:

Best Picture - No Country For Old Men
Best Director - Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen
Best Actor - Daniel Day Lewis
Best Actress - Marion Cotillard
Best Supporting Actor -Javier Bardem
Best Supporting Actress - Tilda Swindon

I suppose it's mildly interesting that foreigners swept the major acting awards this year.

Nominated: The Laurel Hester Story

Among today's Oscar nominees is Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story, nominated for Best Short Documentary. Laurel Hester was the Ocean County, New Jersey cop who upon her diagnosis with terminal lung cancer in 2005, battled the authorities to have her police pension assigned to her partner after her death. After a long, ugly fight with county officials, Hester finally won her case. She died four weeks later. I haven't seen the documentary yet, but if this trailer is any indication, I'll need a case or two of Kleenex. Best wishes to the filmmakers.