FREEHELD, produced by Cynthia Wade, is an Academy Award® Nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject, winner of the Special Jury Prize 2007 Sundance Film Festival and numerous other film awards throughout the country. It is a poignant film showing the events of a dying New Jersey policewoman as she fights for the future financial security of her domestic partner.
Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester spent her entire adult life protecting the residents of Ocean County, New Jersey. Laurel always wanted to be a police officer and knew that when she grew up she would be. When diagnosed with lung cancer, Laurel received a grim prognosis and so did her plans to live a long and happy life with her domestic partner Stacie Andree in their jointly owned home in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.
After twenty five years of defending the citizens of Ocean County, New Jersey, Laurel was forced to spend the last year of her life fighting for her rights and those of her domestic partner. Laurel needed to ensure that her pension was transferred to Stacie when she died, as they would be had the couple been in a traditional domestic living arrangement.
Together, Laurel and Stacie were what the State of New Jersey defines as domestic partners. They shared a residency, in fact, owned the real estate together sharing a mortgage and bank accounts and had designated each other primary beneficiary of their respective insurance policies and retirement plans. They were jointly responsible for each other’s basic living expenses. They had chosen to share each other’s lives in a committed relationship of mutual caring. These are all of the stipulations outlined in Chapter 246, P.L. 2003 — Domestic Partnership Benefits Act which became effective on July 10, 2004.
To describe “domestic partner” in laymen’s terms, some might simply say husband or wife. However, in the enlightened time in which we live, and in the metropolitan State of New Jersey, it is commonly understood that domestic partner is not defined by such designations. Yet in pockets of society within our own communities, there are individuals whose own perceptions of morality motivate them to deny rights to couples who do not fit the traditional role of husband and wife. And how does this happen, one might ask. It happens thanks to ignorance and intolerance, and it is facilitated by the bureaucracy of the Garden State.
Laurel, the first person to apply for a pension transfer under the new Domestic Partner Benefits Act, was denied this right by Ocean County, New Jersey. Many reasons were given from the County’s financial inability to meet the request to the fact that the union was a threat to the sanctity of marriage. None of these reasons stand up to scrutiny.
The term “marriage” has a number of connotations and definitions. From a religious standpoint, marriage is considered as a convent between a man and a woman and their God. In effect, it sanctifies their relationship in the eyes of God which grants them the right to conceive and raise children and so forth in the eyes of their religion. Marriage is also a civil and legal contract. “Religious” marriages have no legal standing if the pastor, rabbi, priest is not considered a legal representative. A person cannot declare herself or himself a minister of my own private religion, pronounce two people married and have that carry any legal weight. The law also decrees that designated legal representatives (justice of the peaces for instance) can perform a legal marriage ceremony without any religious overtones. Many of the problems today are related to confusion between those two views of marriage.
The concept of “Civil Union” is an effort to separate the two. It has only been marginally successful for two reasons: same gender partners often want the sanctity of the religious view while those discriminating against them want to bar any such unions – religious or legal. Under the doctrine of the separation of church and state, it would seem to me that the government has no say in who can or cannot be given a religious marriage, but in a similar manner, no religious leader or group can interfere in any way with the right of any two individuals to obtain a legal marriage.
Let’s define the term discrimination. In Webster’s Dictionary, the term discrimination is defined as follows: to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit.
How bureaucracy allows this type discrimination to play itself out is ironically facilitated by the very legislation that was created to abolish it. Or was it? It’s all in the wording. The stumbling block in the legislation is the terminology: marriage vs. civil marriage, or civil union. This brings to mind, the separation of church and state. It is the sanctity of the perception itself that is threatened, and the mindset that every one must believe what I believe.
Many belief emphatically that marriage has a religious foundation that it is in the eyes of God that one man and one woman unite vowing to love and honor, till death do they part. Civil marriage or civil union is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution. This is the separation of church and state.
It is not socially acceptable for the follower of one religion to dismiss the rights of another to maintain opposing religious beliefs. That is not acceptable behavior in our cultural norm. And, now what I am referring to is the concept of “freedom of religion” which is granted to us through the United States Constitution in the United States Bill of Rights. In fact, freedom of religion was deemed so important to it’s writers that it was included in the First Amendment.
When Cynthia Wade, New York City based documentary filmmaker learned of Laurel and Stacie’s struggle, not only did she realize that there was a story there, she also realized there was an opportunity for her to help. Cynthia, who also produced HBO’s Shelter Dogs, and numerous other award winning documentaries, was in a unique position to bring their story to the eyes of the world.
By this time, Laurel and Stacie had amassed many supporters, including one grassroots organization who led a massive one year campaign on their behalf, Garden State Equality. Garden State Equality is a New Jersey’s political action organization uniting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community.
Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of community supporters, Garden State Equality, and Cynthia Wade, in late January of 2006 Ocean County freeholders granted Laurel the right to designate her domestic partner as her pension beneficiary. Laurel Hester died in peace in the home she owned with Stacy on February 18, 2006. She left this earth with the assurance that her soul mate would have the safe shelter and financial security that they had worked so hard for together.
FREEHELD was sponsored by Women Make Movies, a multicultural, multiracial, non-profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films and videotapes by and about women. To learn more about, or to support Women Make Movies, please visit their website at www.wmm.com.
For more information on this documentary, please go visit the website at www.freeheld.com.
For information on Garden State Equality, please visit www.gardenstateequality.org.
Cites referenced:
(Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/discriminate, accessed on 1/23/2008)
(Garden State Equality, http://www.gardenstateequality.org/, accessed on 1/24/2008)
(Women Making Movies, http://www.wmm.com, accessed on 1/23/2008)
(Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story, http://www.freeheld.com/film.html, accessed on 1/23/2008)
20100215
The Laurel Hester Story
FREEHELD, produced by Cynthia Wade, was an 2008 Academy Award® Nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject, winner of the Special Jury Prize 2007 Sundance Film Festival and numerous other film awards throughout the country. It is a poignant film showing the events of a dying New Jersey policewoman as she fights for the future financial security of her domestic partner.
Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester spent her entire adult life protecting the residents of Ocean County, New Jersey. Laurel always wanted to be a police officer and knew that when she grew up she would be. When diagnosed with lung cancer, Laurel received a grim prognosis and so did her plans to live a long and happy life with her domestic partner Stacie Andree in their jointly owned home in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.
After twenty five years of defending the citizens of Ocean County, New Jersey, Laurel was forced to spend the last year of her life fighting for her rights and those of her domestic partner. Laurel needed to ensure that her pension was transferred to Stacie when she died, as they would be had the couple been in a traditional domestic living arrangement.
Together, Laurel and Stacie were what the State of New Jersey defines as domestic partners. They shared a residency, in fact, owned the real estate together sharing a mortgage and bank accounts and had designated each other primary beneficiary of their respective insurance policies and retirement plans. They were jointly responsible for each other’s basic living expenses. They had chosen to share each other’s lives in a committed relationship of mutual caring. These are all of the stipulations outlined in Chapter 246, P.L. 2003 — Domestic Partnership Benefits Act which became effective on July 10, 2004.
To describe “domestic partner” in laymen’s terms, some might simply say husband or wife. However, in the enlightened time in which we live, and in the metropolitan State of New Jersey, it is commonly understood that domestic partner is not defined by such designations. Yet in pockets of society within our own communities, there are individuals whose own perceptions of morality motivate them to deny rights to couples who do not fit the traditional role of husband and wife. And how does this happen, one might ask. It happens thanks to ignorance and intolerance, and it is facilitated by the bureaucracy of the Garden State.
Laurel, the first person to apply for a pension transfer under the new Domestic Partner Benefits Act, was denied this right by Ocean County, New Jersey. Many reasons were given from the County’s financial inability to meet the request to the fact that the union was a threat to the sanctity of marriage. None of these reasons stand up to scrutiny.
The term “marriage” has a number of connotations and definitions. From a religious standpoint, marriage is considered as a convent between a man and a woman and their God. In effect, it sanctifies their relationship in the eyes of God which grants them the right to conceive and raise children and so forth in the eyes of their religion. Marriage is also a civil and legal contract. “Religious” marriages have no legal standing if the pastor, rabbi, priest is not considered a legal representative. A person cannot declare herself or himself a minister of my own private religion, pronounce two people married and have that carry any legal weight. The law also decrees that designated legal representatives (justice of the peaces for instance) can perform a legal marriage ceremony without any religious overtones. Many of the problems today are related to confusion between those two views of marriage.
The concept of “Civil Union” is an effort to separate the two. It has only been marginally successful for two reasons: same gender partners often want the sanctity of the religious view while those discriminating against them want to bar any such unions – religious or legal. Under the doctrine of the separation of church and state, it would seem to me that the government has no say in who can or cannot be given a religious marriage, but in a similar manner, no religious leader or group can interfere in any way with the right of any two individuals to obtain a legal marriage.
Let’s define the term discrimination. In Webster’s Dictionary, the term discrimination is defined as follows: to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit.
How bureaucracy allows this type discrimination to play itself out is ironically facilitated by the very legislation that was created to abolish it. Or was it? It’s all in the wording. The stumbling block in the legislation is the terminology: marriage vs. civil marriage, or civil union. This brings to mind, the separation of church and state. It is the sanctity of the perception itself that is threatened, and the mindset that every one must believe what I believe.
Many belief emphatically that marriage has a religious foundation that it is in the eyes of God that one man and one woman unite vowing to love and honor, till death do they part. Civil marriage or civil union is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution. This is the separation of church and state.
It is not socially acceptable for the follower of one religion to dismiss the rights of another to maintain opposing religious beliefs. That is not acceptable behavior in our cultural norm. And, now what I am referring to is the concept of “freedom of religion” which is granted to us through the United States Constitution in the United States Bill of Rights. In fact, freedom of religion was deemed so important to it’s writers that it was included in the First Amendment.
When Cynthia Wade, New York City based documentary filmmaker learned of Laurel and Stacie’s struggle, not only did she realize that there was a story there, she also realized there was an opportunity for her to help. Cynthia, who also produced HBO’s Shelter Dogs, and numerous other award winning documentaries, was in a unique position to bring their story to the eyes of the world.
By this time, Laurel and Stacie had amassed many supporters, including one grassroots organization who led a massive one year campaign on their behalf, Garden State Equality. Garden State Equality is a New Jersey’s political action organization uniting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community.
Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of community supporters, Garden State Equality, and Cynthia Wade, in late January of 2006 Ocean County freeholders granted Laurel the right to designate her domestic partner as her pension beneficiary. Laurel Hester died in peace in the home she owned with Stacy on February 18, 2006. She left this earth with the assurance that her soul mate would have the safe shelter and financial security that they had worked so hard for together.
FREEHELD was sponsored by Women Make Movies, a multicultural, multiracial, non-profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films and videotapes by and about women. To learn more about, or to support Women Make Movies, please visit their website at http://www.wmm.com/.
For more information on this documentary, please go visit the website at http://www.freeheld.com/.
For information on Garden State Equality, please visit http://www.gardenstateequality.org/.
Cites referenced:
(Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/discriminate, accessed on 1/23/2008)
(Garden State Equality, http://www.gardenstateequality.org/, accessed on 1/24/2008)
(Women Making Movies, http://www.wmm.com/, accessed on 1/23/2008)
(Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story, http://www.freeheld.com/film.html, accessed on 1/23/2008)
Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester spent her entire adult life protecting the residents of Ocean County, New Jersey. Laurel always wanted to be a police officer and knew that when she grew up she would be. When diagnosed with lung cancer, Laurel received a grim prognosis and so did her plans to live a long and happy life with her domestic partner Stacie Andree in their jointly owned home in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.
After twenty five years of defending the citizens of Ocean County, New Jersey, Laurel was forced to spend the last year of her life fighting for her rights and those of her domestic partner. Laurel needed to ensure that her pension was transferred to Stacie when she died, as they would be had the couple been in a traditional domestic living arrangement.
Together, Laurel and Stacie were what the State of New Jersey defines as domestic partners. They shared a residency, in fact, owned the real estate together sharing a mortgage and bank accounts and had designated each other primary beneficiary of their respective insurance policies and retirement plans. They were jointly responsible for each other’s basic living expenses. They had chosen to share each other’s lives in a committed relationship of mutual caring. These are all of the stipulations outlined in Chapter 246, P.L. 2003 — Domestic Partnership Benefits Act which became effective on July 10, 2004.
To describe “domestic partner” in laymen’s terms, some might simply say husband or wife. However, in the enlightened time in which we live, and in the metropolitan State of New Jersey, it is commonly understood that domestic partner is not defined by such designations. Yet in pockets of society within our own communities, there are individuals whose own perceptions of morality motivate them to deny rights to couples who do not fit the traditional role of husband and wife. And how does this happen, one might ask. It happens thanks to ignorance and intolerance, and it is facilitated by the bureaucracy of the Garden State.
Laurel, the first person to apply for a pension transfer under the new Domestic Partner Benefits Act, was denied this right by Ocean County, New Jersey. Many reasons were given from the County’s financial inability to meet the request to the fact that the union was a threat to the sanctity of marriage. None of these reasons stand up to scrutiny.
The term “marriage” has a number of connotations and definitions. From a religious standpoint, marriage is considered as a convent between a man and a woman and their God. In effect, it sanctifies their relationship in the eyes of God which grants them the right to conceive and raise children and so forth in the eyes of their religion. Marriage is also a civil and legal contract. “Religious” marriages have no legal standing if the pastor, rabbi, priest is not considered a legal representative. A person cannot declare herself or himself a minister of my own private religion, pronounce two people married and have that carry any legal weight. The law also decrees that designated legal representatives (justice of the peaces for instance) can perform a legal marriage ceremony without any religious overtones. Many of the problems today are related to confusion between those two views of marriage.
The concept of “Civil Union” is an effort to separate the two. It has only been marginally successful for two reasons: same gender partners often want the sanctity of the religious view while those discriminating against them want to bar any such unions – religious or legal. Under the doctrine of the separation of church and state, it would seem to me that the government has no say in who can or cannot be given a religious marriage, but in a similar manner, no religious leader or group can interfere in any way with the right of any two individuals to obtain a legal marriage.
Let’s define the term discrimination. In Webster’s Dictionary, the term discrimination is defined as follows: to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit.
How bureaucracy allows this type discrimination to play itself out is ironically facilitated by the very legislation that was created to abolish it. Or was it? It’s all in the wording. The stumbling block in the legislation is the terminology: marriage vs. civil marriage, or civil union. This brings to mind, the separation of church and state. It is the sanctity of the perception itself that is threatened, and the mindset that every one must believe what I believe.
Many belief emphatically that marriage has a religious foundation that it is in the eyes of God that one man and one woman unite vowing to love and honor, till death do they part. Civil marriage or civil union is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution. This is the separation of church and state.
It is not socially acceptable for the follower of one religion to dismiss the rights of another to maintain opposing religious beliefs. That is not acceptable behavior in our cultural norm. And, now what I am referring to is the concept of “freedom of religion” which is granted to us through the United States Constitution in the United States Bill of Rights. In fact, freedom of religion was deemed so important to it’s writers that it was included in the First Amendment.
When Cynthia Wade, New York City based documentary filmmaker learned of Laurel and Stacie’s struggle, not only did she realize that there was a story there, she also realized there was an opportunity for her to help. Cynthia, who also produced HBO’s Shelter Dogs, and numerous other award winning documentaries, was in a unique position to bring their story to the eyes of the world.
By this time, Laurel and Stacie had amassed many supporters, including one grassroots organization who led a massive one year campaign on their behalf, Garden State Equality. Garden State Equality is a New Jersey’s political action organization uniting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community.
Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of community supporters, Garden State Equality, and Cynthia Wade, in late January of 2006 Ocean County freeholders granted Laurel the right to designate her domestic partner as her pension beneficiary. Laurel Hester died in peace in the home she owned with Stacy on February 18, 2006. She left this earth with the assurance that her soul mate would have the safe shelter and financial security that they had worked so hard for together.
FREEHELD was sponsored by Women Make Movies, a multicultural, multiracial, non-profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films and videotapes by and about women. To learn more about, or to support Women Make Movies, please visit their website at http://www.wmm.com/.
For more information on this documentary, please go visit the website at http://www.freeheld.com/.
For information on Garden State Equality, please visit http://www.gardenstateequality.org/.
Cites referenced:
(Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/discriminate, accessed on 1/23/2008)
(Garden State Equality, http://www.gardenstateequality.org/, accessed on 1/24/2008)
(Women Making Movies, http://www.wmm.com/, accessed on 1/23/2008)
(Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story, http://www.freeheld.com/film.html, accessed on 1/23/2008)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)