Philadelphia Monologues

When a man with HIV is fired by his law firm because of his condition, he hires a homophobic small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.

Some of these people make me sick. But a law's been broken here. You do remember the law, don't you?

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…

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.

Explain this to me like I'm a six year old, didn't you have an obligation to tell your employers you had this deadly infectious disease?

And they don't want to fire you for having AIDS so in spite of your brilliance they make you look incompetent thus the mysterious is that what you're trying to tell me?

Thank you. Your honor

, imagine how the children in this neighborhood are being made to feel: the constant pounding o-of construction ringing in their ears as this skyscraper - a *tribute* to mankind's greed - grows daily; casting an ominous shadow over their lives, filling them with dread even as they are surrounded by this toxic dust.

Let's not go off the deep end gentlemen. You've made an articulate and compelling presentation Mr. Miller, but I don't believe you've proven irreparable harm.

Not yet your honor.

ladies and gentlemen of the jury: forget everything you've seen on television and in the movies. There's not going to be any last minute surprise witnesses, nobody's going to break down on the stand with a tearful confession, you're going to be presented with simple facts. Andrew Beckett was fired and you'll two explanations on why he was fired, ours and theirs it's up to you to sit through layer upon layer of truth until you determine for yourself which version sounds the most true. There's certain points I must prove to you: point number one: Andrew Beckett was... is a brilliant lawyer, a great lawyer, point number two: my client afflicted with a disabling disease made the understandable, the personal, and the legal choice to keep the fact of his illness to himself point number three: his employers discovered his illness and ladies and gentlemen the illness I'm referring to is AIDS point number four: they panicked and in their panic they did what most would do which is just get "it" and everybody who has "it" as far as away as possible, the behavior of my client's employers seem reasonable to you, it does to me, after all AIDS is a deadly incurable disease but no matter how you come to judge Charles Wheeler and his partners in ethical and moral and inhuman terms, the fact of the matter is when they fired Andrew Beckett because he has AIDS they broke the law.

Do you like opera?

This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is "Andrea Chenier", Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She's saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died... saving her. "Look, the place that cradled me is burning." Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings, and it changes everything. The music fills with a hope, and that'll change again. Listen... listen..."I bring sorrow to those who love me." Oh, that single cello! "It was during this sorrow that love came to me." A voice filled with harmony. It says, "Live still, I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god... that comes down from the heavens, and makes of the Earth a heaven. I am love!... I am love."

I... many things... uh... uh... What I love the most about the law?

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.

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 actual physical one.

That's not the point from the day they hired me to the day they fired me, I served my clients consistency thoroughly with absolute excellency if they hadn't fired me that's what I've be doing today.

"I misplaced an important compliant" that's their story my side of the story is: the night before it was due I worked on the compliant in my office and I left a copy of it on my desk, the next day the compliant vanished no hard copy, all traces of it mysteriously gone from my computer, miraculously a copy was located at the last minute and we got it to court on time but the next day I was summoned to a meeting with the managing partners who were waiting for me in the conference room

This 'pestilent dust' that council refers to has appeared on only three occasions. Each time it was tested and the results: limestone. It's messy, but innocuous.

Y-Your honor, Kendell Construction builds neighborhoods; it doesn't *destroy* them. Granting a restraining order against this construction site will throw 753 Philadelphians out of work and lend validation to this contemptable groundless nuisance suit. It's an example of the rapacious litigation that, today, is tearing at the very fabric of our society.