Parity Pipeline

Genre

Synopsis

The film tells the surprising story of Arlene Carmen (1939–1994), a seemingly ordinary Jewish woman from the Bronx who spent twenty-seven years as the administrator of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, During that time, with the support of its members and a one-of-a-kind partnership with Reverend Howard Moody, she worked to advance the rights of women, the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups to self determination, dignity and respect. Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist Anna Quindlen calls Arlene the “most extraordinary, ordinary person.”

When Arlene joined the church staff in 1967, they were just beginning the formation of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (CCS), a network that eventually engaged 1400 clergy nationwide in the counseling and referral of women who sought abortions to safe providers in the years before Roe v. Wade.  Howard provided the clergy leadership of the CCS.  Arlene ran the show, and single handedly screened the illegal abortion providers by pretending she was a pregnant woman seeking their services.

After abortion became legal in New York in 1970, Arlene and Howard redirected their efforts to operating a low-cost abortion clinic to reduce financial barriers for poor women—those the CCS had struggled most to serve. This commitment to meeting needs at the margins shaped all the work they pursued across the following decades.

A chance encounter with the head of Prostitutes of New York shifted their focus to the medical, legal, and social needs of street-working women in Times Square. Their response became the Judson Prostitution Project: a converted rental-car shuttle van where women could rest, talk, show baby photos, and access legal, medical, and childcare support. Arlene listened, advocated, and accompanied; Howard drove the van. They baptized children, officiated funerals, and stood beside the women in courtrooms. Arlene herself was arrested during a police “sweep” in 1978, a wrongful arrest that led to an NYCLU lawsuit challenging unconstitutional loitering laws.

In the 1980s, Judson became one of the first churches to hold memorials for people who died of AIDS and to create supportive housing for those living with the disease. Arlene quietly distributed Compound Q, an experimental treatment sought by patients who had lost hope in FDA-approved options. In her final years, she turned her attention to pregnant women and infants on the neonatal ward at Rikers Island.

Across each movement, Arlene and Howard demonstrated what it means to be true allies: opening space—literal and figurative—for people to lead their own struggles; honoring self-determination; accompanying individuals through the most vulnerable moments of their lives; and using their privilege and institutional power to advance causes that were not their own. They rejected the spotlight and resisted building institutions for their own sake, a rarity in social justice work.

Arlene was revered as a saint by many, yet she was also deeply human: a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed, overworked gambler who greeted visitors with “How the fuck are you?” Howard was a Southern Baptist boy preacher on the street corners of Dallas Texas.  His life-long Marine crew-cut and southern drawl belied his profound commitment to progressive change for women, the LGBTQ community and racial minorities in the U.S. 

Told through the eyes of her niece, Tess, the film examines how Arlene and Howard’s philosophy—rooted in the Social Gospel, and the principle of Tikkun Olam—offers a model for lasting, bottom-up change. It connects their legacy to contemporary leaders like Texas State Senator James Talarico, whose “love thy neighbor” politics have energized thousands of young volunteers at a moment when Christian nationalism threatens both faith and democracy.

Ultimately, the film explores how transformative justice emerges from listening, accompaniment, and radical humility, and invites viewers to recognize their own agency and the small, concrete actions through which meaningful social change has always been made.