With all the buzz about Sunday’s controversial Easter sermon delivered by the Reverend Luis Leon, I gave a listen to Leon’s Easter sermon from 2012 — that, like this year, was attended by the First Family — but what I didn’t hear was anything approaching the political nature of his sermon from a few days ago. Why would that be?
Here’s the passage at issue from Leon’s sermon two days ago:
“You can’t go back, you can’t live in the past,” he added. “It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling people back…for Blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants to be on their side of the border.”
What Pastor Leon said about blacks and women on Sunday was simply stupid; but his comments about gays and immigrants applied to President Obama in 2012 as much as they apply to the conservatives he attacked in 2013, no?
Remember, at the time of the 2012 sermon, President Obama had yet to “evolve” on gay rights and immigration reform — one of his 2008 campaign promises — was going nowhere.
If those issues are important to Leon today, he should have spoken truth-to-power in 2012. More importantly, as 2012 was an election year, Leon had an opportunity to use his Easter pulpit to focus on those issues, yet he took a pass. Or maybe Luis “evolved” on these issues, too?
But don’t think the good pastor avoided all controversy in 2012: He does start his sermon bashing the New York Yankees, in the true spirit of Easter.