JUSTICE EQUALITY FREEHELD

Justice is the juice that makes the sometimes bitter fruit of life sweet, but it doesn't grow on trees...

I have just caught up with the 2015 movie Freeheld, and want to recommend it with all my heart to anyone interested in seeing how true justice (equality and freedom) works. Justice is a fight,
a never-ending war, against the prejudice and privilege that is built into our laws and practices, our values, beliefs and social norms that were set up to protect and defend those in power against those without it. It is rarely the mere working of those laws and it is rarely ever realised in full.

The movie Freeheld produced by and starring Ellen Page and based on the award-winning documentary of the gay women who fought for equality and justice and ended up setting in motion the wheels that would legalise same-sex marriage across the US is an excellent dramatisation of one of these rare moments where justice is realised in full.

It is a real life Philadelphia adapted by the writer of that powerful and pioneering gay-rights film, though not receiving anything like the same accolades, I hope not because it's about gay women not men. I thought it was just as powerful and being based in a real-life life-changing story for me makes it even more moving, if it does lack the show-business shine of a Hollywood drama.

I read yesterday that Ellen DeGeneres is heading down under to Australia with her wife Paige to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary and support the passing of same-sex marriage legislation in that country, my country of birth, that has resisted this progression. As Ellen's so public coming out helped (and helps) so many other gay people, including Ellen Page, to come out - and then to produce and star in this important film, among other things - her courage in the fight for justice must also be acknowledged and commended. I hope she succeeds in helping to sway public opinion in Australia towards justice, because justice breeds justice and helps the fight against prejudice and privilege for everyone everywhere.

So thank you to the Ellens and to all the other women and men whose fight for justice for gay people - and for all people - help to make the world a freer and fairer place for all of us. We are all equal indeed.