Lower courts had told Oncale he had no case if his complaint was against another man.

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The decision came in a case concerning the physical and verbal abuse directed at Joseph Oncale, an oil-rig roustabout, by fellow male workers.

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Brent Oncale did not respond to requests for comment.

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So if Mr Oncale can now persuade a lower court that these occurred because he is a man, he can win a suit against his employer for doing nothing to stop it.

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Where Scalia wrote that Oncale had been "physically assaulted...in a sexual manner, " she'd spell out that the young man had been pinned in the oil rig's shower and assaulted with a bar of soap.

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Neither Mr Oncale nor his abusers are gay.

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Nevertheless, the court's ruling further smudges the already blurred line between discrimination on the basis of sex, which is what is actually outlawed by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (the primary source of sexual-harassment law), and mere incivility or, in Mr Oncale's case, criminal assault.

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That was the court's point when it ruled oil worker Joseph Oncale could pursue his suit against three other men he claims harassed and humiliated him, falsely accused him of homosexuality and threatened him with rape when he took a job on an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

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