Oscar Comes to Rehoboth
The Academy Awards are coming to Rehoboth.
And not just any Academy film. We’ve had There Will Be Blood and Juno
and the others at Midway. But on April 12, attendees at the CAMP Rehoboth
Women’s Conference (part of the CAMP Rehoboth Women’s Weekend April
11-13) will get the chance to see an amazing movie: Freeheld, a film by
Cynthia Wade.
Little did CAMP Rehoboth know when they
booked this film as part of their annual Women’s Conference that the
movie— about two brave lesbians—would be the 2008 Academy Award Winner
for Best Short Subject. That honor was preceded by awards at Sundance Film
Festival and dozens of film festival awards around the country.
And although the Academy Award category is
tagged short subject, the movie’s topic is a very long-time subject that
affects thousands of people here in Rehoboth and hundreds of thousands of
Americans.
The movie brings us one lesbian couple’s
fight for equality in a moving, heartbreaking and ultimately triumphant
lesson. When she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, Hester wanted to
transfer her pension to her longtime partner Stacie Andree. The elected
officials of Ocean County, New Jersey (The Freeholders, as the members of
the elected body are called) denied the request—repeatedly, and with a
host of insulting reasons, many of which included “the threat to the
sanctity of marriage.” Without that pension, Andree would lose her home
and her partner.
According to press for the movie,
“Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester spent 25 years investigating tough
cases, protecting the rights of victims and putting her life on the line.
She had no reason to expect that in the last year of her life, after she
was diagnosed with terminal cancer, that her final battle for justice
would be for the woman she loved…. The film is structured
chronologically, following both the escalation of Laurel’s battle with
the Freeholders and the decline of her health as cancer spreads to her
brain.”
In her acceptance speech at the Oscars,
film-maker Cynthia Wade said, in part, “Thank you. It was Lieutenant
Laurel Hester’s dying wish that her fight against discrimination would
make a difference for all the same sex couples across the country that
face discrimination every day. Discrimination that I don’t face as a
married woman.“
During the fight for her rights, Laurel
Hester said, “Twenty-four years is a long time in the closet. And were
it not for this set of particular circumstances, I would not have to be
here to announce my sexuality because, frankly, it’s nobody’s
business.”
But it became everyone’s business when
the media began to understand the inequality of the situation and brought
the couple’s struggle to the attention of their neighbors, their fellow
citizens and area governments.
The film’s producers say, “Despite the
demands of her own declining health, Laurel’s final act of bravery would
serve to energize a grassroots movement that extended far beyond the
confines of her local community and her home state.”
The movie combines a fight for equality
with the personal love story between the couple.
The film will be shown on Saturday, April
12th at 2:30 p.m. as part of the Women’s Weekend Conference. It’s just
one more reason to sign up for the Women’s Conference, have the
opportunity to hear some amazing speakers (including Lisa Sherman, the
General Manager of Logo Network) and then see this incredible film.
For information call CAMP Rehoboth at
302-227-5620.
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