ATLANTA (AP) – The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday tossed out a trial judge’s order that banned children in a divorce case from having any contact with their father’s gay and lesbian friends and partners, and added strong language calling the restriction an abuse of the judge’s discretion.

The court’s unanimous opinion, written by Justice Robert Benham, concluded that the Fayette County judge’s order “flies in the face of our public policy that encourages divorced parents to participate in the raising of their children.”

It was applauded by gay rights advocates in Georgia who viewed the ruling as a commonsense answer to a decision they say was rooted in decades-old misconceptions about gays and lesbians.

The top court’s stern language seemed to surprise the father’s attorney, who said he was encouraged the justices didn’t take an easier route by simply ruling that they wouldn’t interfere with a parent’s rights.

“That’s a strong message. That was more than I expected,” said the attorney, Hannibal Heredia. “It made me feel that they wanted to have that out there – they’re putting their necks on the line.”

The ruling stems from the bitter 2007 divorce of Eric Duane Mongerson and Sandy Kay Ehlers Mongerson, who were married 21 years and had four children.

In court arguments, Sandy Mongerson’s attorney claimed the father subjected the children to an “array of violent, sexual, abusive and wholly inappropriate conduct” during a trip to Arkansas and contended the father was in a series of affairs with other men while still married.

Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards awarded Sandy Mongerson custody of the couple’s three minor children in the final divorce decree, and her ex-husband was granted limited visitation.

The judge also issued a blanket order banning Eric Mongerson from “exposing the children to his homosexual partners and friends.”

Edwards said in his ruling that he was not judging the father based on his sexual orientation, but that his decision was meant to reflect “the trauma inflicted upon the children” during the trip to Arkansas.

The Georgia Supreme Court, though, flatly disagreed. The 10-page ruling concluded Edwards had no evidence that the ban was needed, and that his ruling assumed the children would suffer harm from contact with gays and lesbians associated with their father.

Without such evidence, Benham wrote, “the trial court abused its discretion when it imposed such a restriction on (the) husband’s visitation rights.”

Sandy Mongerson’s attorney, Lance McMillian, said the mother does not plan to appeal.

“My client is interested in putting it behind her,” he said. “Other than that, we don’t have anything to say about it.”

Georgia’s gay rights groups, meanwhile, were more effusive. Jeff Graham of Georgia Equality praised the top court’s ruling as a dose of “common sense and fair mindedness.”

“It clearly does show that if justice is to rule in what’s in the best interest of the child, rulings based upon prejudice and bias are not in the best interest of the child,” he said.