At yesterday’s oral arguments on Thompson v. North American Stainless – the case of the fired fiancé – the Justices discussed whether Title VII allows Eric Thompson to sue his employer for firing him in retaliation for a discrimination complaint lodged by his fiancée. Everyone agrees that Title VII prohibits the company from firing her. The Justices of the Supreme Court are trying to figure out if that federal law also protects her fiancé.

The Washington Post reports:

But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wondered if the betrothed were included, how far would the law extend.

“Does it include simply a good friend?” he asked. “Does it include somebody who just has lunch in the cafeteria every day with the person who engaged in the protected conduct? Somebody who once dated the person who engaged in the protected conduct?”

[The fired employee’s attorney] said the person fired would have to prove the intent was to punish the person who complained. And then the person would have to show that the retaliatory action was serious enough to dissuade a reasonable person from filing a complaint.

Justice Antonin Scalia put himself in the role of employer, saying he would want a clear rule on who he “had to treat with kid gloves.”

Note that Justices Alito and Scalia are not mechanically calling balls and strikes, as in the severely flawed umpire metaphor then-Judge John Roberts used at his confirmation hearings – and which conservatives have been using since to bamboozle the American public. In interpreting Title VII, they are taking policy considerations into account: How would their interpretation work? How could any line-drawing be justified? How could the needs of employers for clarity be met?

This is exactly what we expect judges to do.

Conservative supporters of Alito and Scalia who repeat the tired “balls and strikes” line simply cannot be taken seriously. They simply use it to mask their extremist, results-oriented viewpoint that no matter what the Constitution and statutes actually say, corporations and powerful special interests should win, while workers, women, gays, immigrants, and liberals should lose.