Charles Wheeler and partners

ROFLMAO. And you base this on....???? Why even watch the film as presented? Just make up your own!

Agree with Doc80. Up until the sudden decision to terminate Andy for "incompetence", they had actually thought highly of Andy's work with the firm. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Andy really was just a mediocre attorney at best; that Wheeler and his friends were telling the truth. If so, then his termination would have been justified. In the field of litigation, incompetence is a firable offense. It's legal to terminate an employee based on that reason. Again, IF that had indeed been the case. But it wasn't. But if it were, would they have allowed him to handle that important case, the Highline complaint? Not to mention made him a senior partner in that firm? Would there have been clients who thought highly of Andy representing them? Would all this have been so if he were a mediocre, incompetent attorney? I don't think so. There would have been complaints about him that gradually built up, leading to the termination...instead of it being sudden like that. And the hallway scene...they were not innocent men who really didn't know he had AIDS. They were just trying to make themselves look that way. That one associate Bob, who they confronted and demanded, "You didn't know he was sick, did you, Bob?!" In context, they were actually threatening him to go along with their story, of looking like employers who did not know of Andy's terminal illness, before terminating him. It was just masks they were putting on. Didn't you hear Charles saying before that, "He brought AIDS into our offices, our men's rooms, to our annual family picnic!" Plus, that one woman who testified that that one Wheeler associate, Walter had treated her similiarly because she had HIV. And when that guy, Jamie, and Charles Wheeler, when they each testified, each of them denied that the termination was based on Andy's terminal illness, and because of supposedly botching that important case. But Andy and Joe knew they were lying. So Joe ambushed them with the "Are you gay?" question, to force their prejudices out into the open, which he successfully did, by the way they reacted. They were proud of their prejudices also. And like that analogy used by the jury foreman: giving an attorney they don't have confidence in, and/or don't trust, one of their most important cases ever, is like sending a rookie fighter pilot who can't "cut it" on a mission into enemy territory in a jet worth millions of dollars, instead of their best, sharpest, top gun pilot.

I don´t think that Wheeler´s reaction PROVED that he was a bigot. A lot of men who are not anti-gay would be offended if they were accused of being gay, especially in public. I would be offended it someone asked me while I was on the stand in the court of law if I was retarded, but that wouldn´t mean that I was necessarily bigoted against retarded people.