‘The Unusual Steve Horner’ battles feminism

Some call him a woman hater. Others call him a pest. An agitator. A nutcase.

Eggs have been thrown at his house. Acid has been dumped on his doorstep. His life has even been threatened.

These things happen to Steve Horner because he's a man who loudly protests something few others care about -- "ladies' night" promotions at bars and clubs.

If a woman can get into a bar for free, so should a man, Horner argues. And he's spent two decades traveling across the country busting ladies' nights and yelling about his civil rights.

The amicable folks don't yell or throw stones. They just ask: Don't you have something better to do?

Horner's short answer: No.

He proudly compares himself to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. His crusade is like the mission of Jesus Christ, he says.

Horner, a Vietnam veteran, sees himself as a lone wolf preaching wisdom in the face of anger and dismissal. He sees society as a pack of lemmings traveling dumbly toward the edge of the cliff.

But why would someone fight so long for a cause that has alienated his family, ruined his job prospects and left him nearly bankrupt?

And why has that cause now brought him to Las Vegas?

"People ask me, 'Steve, are you gay? Do you not like women? Was your mother a bitch?'

"That, to me, is like asking women why they don't like NASCAR. Does she not like men? No, she doesn't like the loud noise and toxic fumes."

After 40 years in advertising, giving seminars and a few stints as a radio host, Horner, 64, is used to selling himself. And he's perfected this sales pitch over time.

Horner's mother raised Steve and his five brothers in Minneapolis in the '50s and '60s. She was the perfect matron, teaching her sons to be strong, responsible young men, he said. And she wasn't afraid to use a stiff hand to make her point.

"She spanked our ass if we misbehaved," Horner recalled.

But today's women are different.

"(Younger) women are arrogant, vindictive, drug-using, abortion-utilizing, angry bitches," he says. "The days of my mother … that style of parenting? That's gone. That responsibility, the in-the-trenches dedication you will need to succeed is gone."

It's hard to imagine Jesus calling a female prosecutor a dyke, as Horner once did. It's also hard to believe Martin Luther King Jr. would write a book about women titled "Can't Understand Normal Thinking," as Horner said he intends to do.

If you think the acronym formed by the title is offensive, Horner wants to write a chapter about you.

"Chapter Two," he says.

Horner speaks with smarmy confidence that borders on arrogance. In his world, the listener is the pupil and he's the teacher, dangling the answers to life's test questions.

He seeks to incite rather than persuade. Like a broadcaster announcing a sponsor, Horner often interrupts himself to plug his website ("… learn more at stevehornerbooks.com …") where he sells a novel, originally titled "The Unusual Frank White," parenting guides and even his autobiography.

He doesn't hate women, he says repeatedly. Nothing bothers him more than that accusation.

It's feminism he hates. And that hasn't always been the case, he says.

Horner's views changed after his divorce in 1984. He thought the family should stay together for the sake of the kids, but his wife wanted to leave.

"That was the liberation attitude. Go out and find yourself," he said.

HE FOUGHT THE LAW

It's hard to find someone to agree with Horner.

It's even harder to find someone who wants to argue with him.

Lynn Comella, a women's studies professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, dismissed him quickly.

"I frankly don't have anything worthwhile to say. I mean, if he is really interested in the question of gender equality, I can think of many more pressing issues that warrant his time and attention," Comella said.

Horner claims his only mission has been equal rights, no matter how small the issue. He believes ladies' night conditions young women to expect favors throughout their lives.

"If you pay attention to the small things, the big things take care of themselves. I think this is the infrastructural element of excellence," he says. "I don't think women have any business being in the money handout business, period."

Some people tell Horner he's just a bitter divorced man who feels cheated by the court system.

But unlike many divorced men, Horner was granted custody of his children. The court decision devastated his wife, who moved to Arizona, he said.

Horner began raising his boys alone while running a successful advertising agency from his Minnesota home. Life was going good, but the world around him was crumbling, he said. He saw women gaining political power and destroying the country with sentimental policies that favored their own.

Many men sided with the feminists, Horner says. He has a name for those type of men, but it isn't fit to print.

Horner felt people paid little attention to the plight of single fathers, but clamored in­cessantly about brave single mothers and deadbeat dads.

But to Horner, his wife was the one who abandoned him.

In 1992, eight years after the divorce, Horner was in line at a bar at the newly opened Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

The plan was to sneak off for a beer and head home by 9 p.m. What he discovered would send him home much earlier -- and change his life forever.

"Ladies' night," Horner says with a sneer. "I just wasn't in the mood to take it. I was just as handicapped as any of these women in line, in terms of parity in wage earning. I had two kids and nobody to help me."

Horner filed a complaint against the bar with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. They were reluctant to pursue his claim.

"Why do you hate women, Mr. Horner?" he recalled a woman at the agency asking.

The department eventually took his case. Three years later.

Horner says he "leaned" on officials, which he admits is a mild way to put it. When Horner "leans" it feels like an elephant sitting on your chest.

After the agency reluctantly concluded Horner's rights had been violated, he started a media frenzy.

He called radio stations. He called TV stations. It was a national story within two days.

Although he only received a $100 payout for his effort, he realized that ladies' night was his break. He had been an activist before, but this issue made him important. It made him a somebody.

Horner remembers one of his sons watching a TV news story about him and saying, "Gee, Dad, I guess one guy can make a difference."

He decided to start a war.

His next battle would take him to jail.

WHEN NO ONE CARES

Andy Mannix, a writer for alternative newspaper City Pages in Minneapolis, has reported on Horner in the last few years. A few wins have convinced Horner he's justified about ladies' night -- at least, by law.

"He isn't wrong," Mannix said. "But no one really cares. It's not an issue anyone has ever, or will ever, bring up again."

Horner admits that men generally don't care about a promotion that brings women into a bar.

"Ladies' night is the perfect storm in civil rights. Booze, frivolity and sex. It's easy for issues to get brushed away and ignored. And I'm saddened more people don't embrace it," he said.

There was a time when Horner was angrier and feistier .

Two years after his big win in Minnesota, Horner was accused of harassing the state's commissioner of human rights. She wouldn't take his gender discrimination case against a Hooters restaurant, he says.

Horner was found guilty on three counts of harassment and jailed for 30 days, which he calls "Steve Horner's 30-Day Self-Improvement Seminar."

"I lost a little weight and fine-tuned my basketball game," he jokes. "Also, my ebonics."

After he was released from jail, Horner decided he was done in Minnesota for a while. His boys were grown, his advertising business was struggling and he wasn't as welcome in town anymore.

He sold his house and hit the road for the next 10 years, looking for a place to put down roots. He called it "Steve's Big Adventure."

THE WANDERER

Horner's first stop was in Phoenix, but that didn't last long. He blew a job opportunity after going over his super­visor's head. As it turned out, his supervisor's boss was a woman from Minnesota who knew his name, he said.

His ex-wife lived in the area, but Horner said he never tried to contact her. Once, he scanned the phone book for the man she remarried. He thought about calling to confront him, but never did.

His sons, Paul and J.J., both relocated to Arizona, closer to their mother. They don't see Horner often and laugh uncomfortably when asked about their childhood.

"As a kid, definitely, it bothered me," said J.J., 29. "Now, as an adult, I seem to be a better person overall because of it. I find different views on simple issues, or another way of looking at our culture."

Paul, 33, said he never asked his dad why ladies' night bothered him so much.

"After 18 years of not asking him about it, it would be weird if I did now," he said. "Honestly, I just don't have an opinion."

Horner said he is not pleased with either of his sons.

For one, he believes Paul is sympathetic toward the Occupy Wall Street protesters, which bugs him. And because he was a tough dad while they were kids, he thinks both ran to Arizona to be coddled by their mother as adults, he said.

"I love my kids," he said. "I just don't hear from these guys anymore."

After Phoenix, Horner traveled to small towns in Oregon and Idaho, and then to bigger cities such as San Antonio and Denver. Each stop lasted no more than three years. In every place, he busted a ladies' night -- or at least tried. He found San Antonio didn't have an equal rights commission, and it was too hot to hang around.

"It was 95 degrees with 95 percent humidity every day," he said. "Just like Vietnam."

In Denver, he continued to bust ladies' nights, and with years of experience, he was getting pretty good at it. Producers with Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" heard about him, and Horner filmed a small segment.

He was lampooned, but doesn't care. He enjoyed being in the spotlight.

It also was in Denver where Horner almost put down roots.

ABANDONED LOVE

Although Horner has five brothers, he's not close with any of them.

Tom Horner, 61, is perhaps the most notable. A former public relations executive, Tom Horner ran for governor of Minnesota as an Independence Party candidate in 2010 and received about 12 percent of the vote.

Several months before the election, Steve Horner began attacking his brother in the Minnesota media. He even filed several ladies' night complaints in Minnesota despite living in Utah, throwing Tom some unprovoked negative publicity.

Tom Horner was unwilling to talk much about his brother. In an email, he wrote that he hadn't spoken to Steve in some time.

"While I think the ladies' night campaign is ridiculous, Steve is entitled to his cause," Tom wrote. The other brothers "get along well, are close and see each other frequently. We often have robust conversations on everything from politics (we range from very conservative to very liberal) to sports while continuing to enjoy each other's company."

Steve Horner said his brothers pander to their wives, who accuse him of being a woman hater and don't want him around.

When he wrote a book a few years ago about being sexually abused as a teen­ager by an older man, something his family never knew about it, none of his brothers responded, he said.

"I've been left out here on this trail. My family has deserted me, and I think it's through the influences of the women and daughters in the family," he said.

Blaming women for his failed relationships is a common thread for Horner.

He met a lovely woman, Shari, at a Denver singles dance on Labor Day in 2007. By November, the couple was engaged.

But the engagement didn't last. Horner blames Shari's daughters for the breakup, but it's one subject he doesn't like to discuss.

When he figured that Shari's family didn't want him around, he "gave her an out." Shari agreed, and the couple split.

He was in a dark place when he moved back to Minnesota after the breakup, but he said his brothers weren't there for him.

Horner knew there was damage to be repaired, but always expected it would be them who saw the light.

"I thought my brothers would finally wake up and see society going in the wrong direction, and say, 'Steve, you were there to point out the problems.' But the chasm seems to be growing wider.

"It's unfortunate, and I hate it, but I am who I am, and I firmly believe in what I'm doing."

VIVA LAS VEGAS

Horner is an addict for his cause, so perhaps it's natural he'd choose Las Vegas for his next, and perhaps final, ladies' night venture.

Last summer, Horner filed complaints with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission against the MGM Grand, the M Resort, Rio, Hard Rock Hotel, The Mirage and Tropicana for not allowing him into their pool parties and clubs at the discounted ladies rate.

Horner said he rushed the complaints after hearing the Nevada Legislature had approved an amendment specifically allowing ladies' night promotions. The law went into effect in October.

Five of the casinos ignored him. Horner thinks the Tropicana might be willing to settle. After those complaints are resolved, Horner said he will continue to protest in Nevada. He's already contacted the offices of Gov. Brian Sandoval and other legislators about changing the law.

"The state has prostituted itself," he said. "Everyone has rights, except when money is involved."

Horner hopes to get a lawyer to help him, but doesn't expect it to happen. In his 18 years, not one lawyer has agreed to represent his ladies' night crusade.

He approached the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which declined to take his case.

"We don't view ladies' night as rising to a serious constitutional issue," said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel of the ACLU of Nevada. "We at the ACLU have a long-standing policy to deal with issues, not personalities."

Dismissal doesn't deter Horner, who said he plans to be in Las Vegas for "the long haul."

"It's like a drug. I can't stop it," he said. "Truly, it gives me great pleasure, a great high because I know I'm doing the right thing."

But if Horner doesn't make any money off the casinos, he could be in trouble, he said.

He owns a small home in a private community in St. George, Utah, but was fired from his last advertising job in 2010. He believes he was fired because his bosses found out about his crusade against ladies' night, but they didn't give him a reason.

Money was tight, so Horner did something he said he'd never done before. The man who built his image on ending handouts filed for unemployment.

It wasn't an easy decision, Horner said, and he reflected on it for quite awhile.

"The only reason I did it is because they were weasels ," he said of his former employers. "That's how I justified it in my mind."

Somewhere, Horner is sure, there's a woman to blame.

Contact reporter Mike Blasky at
mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.