CARROLLTON — Neal Horsley, who gained notoriety a decade ago for publishing the names of abortion doctors on simulated “Wanted” posters on a Web site, is at the center of a new legal battle for carrying a campaign sign that displays the head of an aborted fetus.
Horsley, who has launched a longshot, third-party bid to become Georgia’s governor in 2010, was charged with obscenity for carrying the sign. He argues that officials in Carrollton, a west Georgia town of about 20,000, violated his free speech rights when they confiscated it last summer.
A mustachioed man in his 60s, Horsley patiently held a laminated poster of an aborted fetus and waited his turn Thursday while reading a book titled “Censorship” as the municipal court judge ticked through a litany of traffic violations.
The showdown ultimately fizzled when the judge refused to dismiss the case. Because Horsley then demanded a jury trial, which is not possible in municipal court, the judge transferred the case to a county court where it could be heard in a few weeks.
“My problem is I’m running for governor and the clock is ticking,” a frustrated Horsley told the judge. “I’m effectively being short-circuited in campaigning.”
Horsley, a 64-year-old computer programmer, earned attention and airtime in the late 1990s for his role in establishing a Web site that published the names and addresses of doctors who performed abortions.
When a physician in Buffalo was killed in 1998 by an avowed abortion opponent, abortion rights advocates denounced Horsley’s site.
Planned Parenthood officials called it a “hit list for terrorists” and the organization filed a federal lawsuit seeking to shut down the site. It still exists today, although Horsley was forced to rein in some of the graphics on his site, including lines that were drawn through the names of doctors who had been killed.
The publicity earned his site attention — Horsley claims “millions and millions” of hits. But he seems upset he is no longer in the media spotlight, saying he is a victim of “market censorship.”
“The people don’t want to hear it,” he said.
That may help explain his bid for Georgia’s 2010 governor’s race under a party he founded called The Creator’s Rights Party. He said the party, which claims abortion is “slavery for Satan,” has hundreds of members.
He kicked off his campaign on July 4 in downtown Carrollton, where he showed up with the placard of the fetus on his back while singing an anti-abortion ballad he wrote called “Babies’ Blood on Georgia.”
City police told him to remove the sign. A few days later, Horsley showed up at the Carrollton City Hall with the sign in tow, practically daring officials to confiscate it. City officials did, citing him on obscenity charges. (He posted a 10-minute video of the exchange on YouTube.)
In court on Thursday, he urged a Carrollton municipal judge to dismiss the case. The city, though, said it will keep his sign until the case is called for a jury trial in a few weeks.
“That ain’t right,” said a dejected Horsley.
As they spoke, a half-dozen antsy police officers watched the proceedings. If Carrollton’s judicial system seemed like an awkward place to test free speech law, that’s because it is.
“In state court we don’t get free speech cases,” said Jimmy Tuggle, the Carroll County solicitor. “We get drunks and wife-beaters. So this is a new one.”
