Your morning jolt: A right to gay friends, not loud music

The Georgia Supreme Court issued a raftful of decisions on Monday.

Two are of particular note. Robert Benham wrote the majority opinion for each.

In Mongerson v. Mongerson, a divorce case, the justices agreed that a Fayette County court was correct when it prohibited a father from exposing his children to contact with his parents, who were judged to be abusive.

But a blanket prohibition on contact with the husband’s gay and lesbian friends was another matter:

There is no evidence in the record before us that any member of the excluded community has engaged in inappropriate conduct in the presence of the children or that the children would be adversely affected by exposure to any member of that community.

The prohibition against contact with any gay or lesbian person acquainted with Husband assumes, without evidentiary support, that the children will suffer harm from any such contact. Such an arbitrary classification based on sexual orientation flies in the face of our public policy that encourages divorced parents to participate in the raising of their children (OCGA § 19-9-3(d)), and constitutes an abuse of discretion.

The Supreme Court also upheld an Athens-Clarke County noise ordinance that bars loud music. But the most interesting part of the decision was a blistering, 15-page dissent from Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears.

Music, she argued, qualifies as First Amendment expression. Like speech on a public square. (Or unlimited campaign contributions.) Wrote Sears:

[The Athens ordinance] criminalizes speech by individuals in the privacy of their own homes, as well as in public places. Those unable to afford to live in detached, single-family houses are subject to especially stringent restrictions.

The ordinance bars apartment-dwellers – 24 hours a day, seven days a week – from making or causing to be made “any noise in such a manner as to be plainly audible to any other person a distance of five feet” outside their unit….

The majority opinion fails to appreciate that music equals speech in the First Amendment context. The playing of music is not, as the trial court conceived it, “symbolic speech,” such as silently burning a draft card or an American flag or flying an altered American flag upside down, that receives a lesser degree of First Amendment protection.

Music is inherently expressive, and it receives the full protection of the First Amendment, even if it has no lyrics.

In a morning pair of Tweets, former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged the shout-out he received from President Barack Obama on Monday.

Obama, in a speech on health care reform to the American Medical Association, said he was in rare agreement with Gingrich on the need to computerize medical records. Obama used Gingrich’s oft-used assertion that we track Federal Express packages more closely than we do medical records.

Tweeted Gingrich:

President obama’s quote of my fedex analogy of electronic accuracy captured a key reason we support electronic health records at cht

Cht (the center for health transformation) has a long history of bipartisan support for electronic health records. we continue to support it

If you want to know what the next wave of gun laws will bring to Georgia, just look north.

Tennessee has passed two new statutes. One would permit those with concealed-carry permits to pack heat in state and federal parks. We have that.

But the New York Times points to another as well, that “would exempt from federal regulation guns and ammunition made in Tennessee and kept within its borders.”

Writes the Times:

The law exempting Tennessee from federal gun regulations, while having little immediate effect, may have broader implications down the road. It comes as part of a states’-rights movement that tries to test the limits of federal power.

The Tennessee bill is nearly identical to one signed into law in Montana and similar to ones under consideration in other states. Since Montana’s law does not take effect until Oct. 1, the one in Tennessee, which takes effect July 1, could become the first test case in the courts.

“The purpose of this bill is to let people know we have state sovereignty and the federal government has no business telling us what to do,” State Senator Mae Beavers, a Mount Juliet Republican who sponsored the bill, said in an interview.

While you ponder the above, consider these items found while perusing this morning’s ajc.com:

Senator: Make it a crime to change test scores.

Sembler donated to campaign of DeKalb school official who helped firm get tax break.

MARTA hearings this week deal with service cuts.

Gwinnett County residents bellow, Atlantan city residents whimper at tax hike proposals.

Council committee backs review board with subpoenas of records in fatal Atlanta police shootings.

Isakson reports progress in wartorn Darfur.

WiMax turns metro Atlanta into giant wireless hotspot.

Court throws out ban on exposing children to gays.

Court: UGA students can’t just crank it up.

Court overturns teacher’s sex conviction.

Court: Online travel sites must pay city sales tax.

New group wants Atlanta candidates to focus on safety, maintenance, more green space.

Some opinion:

Your Luckovich fix.

Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty write that Ahmadinejad is the president Iranians want — according to the polls.

Carla R. Monroe says school extras help kids succeed.

From elsewhere in Georgia:

Douglas County Sentinel: Commissioner arrested on accusation of simple battery.

And beyond:

WSJ: Audit finds that U.S. overpaid Blackwater.

NYT: Social networks spread Iranian defiance online.

WP: Dealers say they were led astray in Chrysler’s final days.

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