PHILADELPHIA [1993]

No One Would Take On His Case... 

Until One Man Was Willing To Take On The System

[Joe Miller]: The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against otherwise qualified handicapped persons who are able to perform the duties required by their employment. 

Although the ruling did not address the specific issue of HIV and AIDS discrimination... 

[Andrew Beckett]: Subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a handicap under law, 

not only because of the physical limitations it imposes, 

but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precede... 

which precedes the physical one. 

[Joe Miller]: This is the essence of discrimination: formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, 

but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics. 

We're standing here in Philadelphia, the, uh, city of brotherly love, the birthplace of freedom, where the, uh, founding fathers authored the Declaration of Independence, 

and I don't recall that glorious document saying anything about all straight men are created equal. 

I believe it says all men are created equal. 

[Joe Miller]

[Judge Garrett]: In this courtroom, Mr.Miller, 

justice is blind to matters of race, creed, color, religion, and sexual orientation. 

[Joe Miller]: With all due respect, your honor, we don't live in this courtroom, do we? 

[Joe Miller]: What do you love about the law, Andrew?

[Andrew Beckett]: I... many things... uh... uh... What I love the most about the law?

[Joe Miller]: Yeah.

[Andrew Beckett]: It's that every now and again 

- not often, but occasionally - 

you get to be a part of justice being done. 

That really is quite a thrill when that happens.

*****