MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) – A film about a dying New Jersey lesbian police officer’s struggle for benefits for her partner was nominated Tuesday for an Academy Award.

Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story is up in the best documentary short subject category.

While that category isn’t one of the higher-profile ones, getting the nomination was a goal for Hester, who died of lung cancer nearly two years ago.

Hester’s story became a major cause for GLBT rights activists in New Jersey in 2005. Though the state at the time was one of a handful to offer domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, county governments did not have to offer benefits to the partners of their gay employees.

Hester, a detective with the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, was trying to make sure that Ocean County would give her partner, Stacie Andree, a $13,000 death benefit when Hester died.

Before Hester died, the county’s governing body – the Board of Chosen Freeholders – agreed to extend the benefits.

New York-based filmmaker Cynthia Wade has said that she promised Hester she would submit the 38-minute film to the Academy as a way to raise awareness of GLBT-rights issues.

On her Web site, Wade recently posted an interview with Hester taken about six weeks before she died.

“I think this film is one of the most important things that’s ever happened to me,” Hester said.

She said she hoped it would inspire others to deal with homosexuality and discrimination.

The filmmaker said it was important for her to adhere to Hester’s wishes and pursue the nomination.

“Even in the midst of fighting both cancer and the discrimination that she was facing, she understood that her personal story could make a difference for many same-sex couples around the country,” Wade said Tuesday from Park City, Utah, where she was attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Though the documentary is shorter than a full-length movie, making it wasn’t cheap, Wade said.

Under Academy rules, she could not sell the rights to the documentary to a television network in 2007. She also had to absorb the extra expense of transferring the documentary to 35 mm film, and had to rent movie theaters so it could have a legitimate theatrical run.

In all, Wade said the movie cost $350,000 to make. But the nomination also means a chance at a higher-paying distribution deal, she said.

The film has received widespread attention, winning about a dozen awards already, including a special jury award at last year’s Sundance.

Wade says she is now considering her next documentary topic. Like Freeheld, she said it will deal with a controversial social issue, though she hasn’t chosen one yet.

The gay rights group Garden State Equality is planning an Oscar-watching party so its members can root for the film together when the awards are announced on Feb. 24.

New Jersey has been in the forefront on key gay rights issues in recent years.

In 2004, the state became among the first to offer domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples.

In December 2006, lawmakers in Trenton, under pressure from the state Supreme Court, made New Jersey the third state to offer civil unions – which offer same-sex couples all the benefits of marriage, but not the title. Couples have been allowed to enter into the unions since Feb. 22, 2007.

Advocacy groups say they will lobby the Legislature this year to allow same-sex couples to marry. In the United States, only Massachusetts now allows same-sex marriage.