''It was a tough movie to watch. I've been with my partner for 30 years and it's always been an issue: What if one of us get sick?''

-- Sam Joseph, of South Orange, N.J., speaking at a West Orange Oscar-night screening of Freeheld, which won an Academy Award for best documentary short subject. The film follows Detective Lt. Laurel Hester, a county employee, as she struggled before her death against lung cancer and the Ocean County, N.J., freeholders to secure her employment benefits for her longtime partner, Stacie Andree. (New York Times)