Pastor Bobby Leonard's recent sermon, where he suggested that rape suspects should be acquitted if their victims were shorts, has sparked intense backlash and condemnation. Despite the outcry, his subsequent apology, displayed on a sign outside the church, has been met with skepticism. The sign, bearing a simple message of regret,
falls short of addressing the deeper issues raised by Leonard's remarks. Critics argue that such a passive response fails to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and the need for meaningful accountability. As protests continue and voices demand more than mere words, Leonard's apology via signage serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing struggle for justice and recognition of survivor's experiences. This story is from The Charlotte Observer by Mark
Joe Marussak on February twenty six, twenty four. And this is just so infuriating, So infidel, let's hear from you first. Now, I was raised in a sect where pants were a sin for women, So forget shorts. This idea she was asking for is something unfortunately not new at all. I will say, though, that one thing that really struck me beyond absurd was because a man's a man. What kind of excuse is that? What does that say about Pastor Bobby Leonard? You know I've mentioned before that we
can tell a pastor's porn preferences by what they rail against. Well, I have to wonder what's going on inside a pastor Bobby Leonard's mind that makes him think that sexual assault is something that can so easily be excused, and not only excused, but essentially dismissed as not sexual assault because he didn't just say that they were asking for, but that he would vote to acquit them. To me, that's almost like saying I hold somebody's arms down because whether they
were wearing shorts. It's just a complete level of dishonesty. But then again, maybe not just us at all, because really this is just what we call purity culture now, but it's without all the polish and spit and the right words and the guise of normalcy that we see a lotted to purity cultures so often. Unfortunately, though, I will say that, as you mentioned the apology on the billboard, that's a pretty weak way to apologize. You
would think that if you really realize you said something wrong. You would do a little better than have somebody else go out and put something up on a billboard. But this isn't new. This is just another example of what we're seeing as an additional attack on women's rights and women's right to control their own body, because, after all, men will be men. A man's a man, and with that, I have a lot more to say, and none of it very good, at least not for a pastor Bobby Leonard.
So I think it's time that I go ahead and say, Kelly, what did you think about this? Yeah? You know, yeah, A man's a man, and I guess it's a woman's a woman. So it's okay to assault them because they're wearing shorts, because you know, woman's a woman, right. What kind of excuse is that? That's ridiculous? You know? And you know what I hear when I hear this guy, when I hear Pastor Leonard say this, what I hear is is that I would acquit
this guy because this is something I would do. This is something that I think I would be guilty of if I when I see women with tight shorts, that's what I want to do to them. So why should that be a bad thing? I'm doing it, I'm a pastor. Why is that a bad thing? You know? And that's what really I think bothered me the most about this, because that's kind of the way I heard this weighing
out from his talk, and I hear from theis all the time. We all have that you don't believe in God, So where are your morals at? You must be out there murdering and raping people, And I always have to seriously wonder is that what they would be doing? Is that what they would be doing if they didn't believe in God? And when you hear somebody like Pastor Leonard say something like this, you really really really have to wonder would you be out there, Pastor Leonard? Would you be out there raping
if you didn't believe in God? Would you be I kind of have a feeling that you might. And I think the only way to keep you in check is your belief in God. So please, please, please keep believing in your God. Richard. Do you want to take it? Well, I'm going to kind of go a little sideways from you, Kelly and say
that I think part of it the problem is his belief in God. I don't know that he can do anything about it short of leaving his religion or having some major reform, since Biblical Christianity is so misogynistic that he will make similar mistakes over and over again. Take for example, one Timothy to eleven fourteen. I quote, I permit no woman to teach or to have authority
over a man. She is to keep silent end of quote. And then we have Genesis nineteen six through eight where a lot takes a man into his house who's being chased by some people. They want to grab him, do whatever they want to do to him. Does he send him out? No, he sends out his two daughters, virgin daughters, and they get ravaged. Basically, what the Old Testament says is women are property, and so a women's a woman. These people have this belief in the back of their
heads. You know they're going to think and they so. For people who think the Bible is an errant and the word of God and they must follow it, they are objectively misogynists, and they're going to think that doing stuff like that's okay. Onward, Dickie, where are you well, what is you going to say to that you were you were quoting First Timothy there, and I want to rewind a little bit, and I want to go to
a couple of verses before what you're reading. If we look at First Timothy two nine through ten, right, they say likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls are costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works. I wonder you're saying some people follow the Bible.
I wonder if he really does believe in that, because I'm thinking that he wouldn't be voting to a quit if the woman was wearing braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire. I'm wondering if he's being biblical enough. I mean, but Infidel, you were talking about purity culture, right, and it's purity and modesty and all of that kind of balled up into one.
We don't just see this in Christianity too. There's other parts of the world where throwing acid in a woman's face is okay because she was being quote unquote immodest by daring to not cover up her face with a veil in public. I mean it, it's treating women as property, like we were saying. And I want to take a before I pass it back off to Infidel, because I know you're chewing at the bid here trying to get some more.
But I want to look at his apology here. Okay, So he put a sign on the or he put an apology on the church sign, and he did say I was wrong. I got to give him credit for that. Okay, he did say I was wrong. It wasn't It wasn't a very robust or believable really apology, but he did at least acknowledge that he did something wrong. I looked up on the web here Taylorcounselinggroup dot com.
They say they have five properties of an important apology, or of a good apology, and a good apology, according to them, expresses regret. And so maybe he expressed regret here. He did say that he did something wrong, and that's the second step there, accepting responsibility. Okay, making restitution. I think he's got a ways to go on that. Okay. I'd like to hear him talk about the way that he should have been talking about women. I want him to talk about how what he said was wrong
and why is it wrong and what we should do instead. That's the third step. The fourth step, of course, is generally genuinely promising change. Okay. So that's kind of the a key step in an apology that's not really you know, it's not really brought up that often. You know, apology you want to express regret, you want to say you're sorry, you want to try to make things better, but you also want to commit to
making a change in the future. And I'm hearing nothing of that from uh, from you know, pastor I want to say, Pastor Ricky, Bobby, Pastor Bobby Leonard. And then of course the last thing is requesting forgiveness, okay, And so that's he wants. You need to make amends with the population that you've harmed and this definitely is causing harm. And so you know, I'd like to see a little bit more out of that. If he wants credit for being apologetic, then I think he's going to have to
step up his game a little bit. Infidel, what do you think. I think that Pastor Bobby Leonard is more concerned about being wrong for getting exposed and the net get a publicity. He's gotten definitely more than it is yes, rather than I've actually done something wrong. And that does go back to what Richard said earlier, because at the end of the day, the Bible
is extremely misogynistic. And as I had mentioned earlier, I was raising a church where women couldn't wear pants, couldn't wear a makeup, nobody could pierce their ears, couldn't even cut your hair, not even triming. So with those types of you couldn't bread it woo, that's crossing the line. That's I guess they were getting a little modern. They were getting a little too modern. But when it comes down to it, it really is. It
does come back to this. Women are property. Women should be silent and heard and not heard, but they should they should listen and obey their husbands. You know, that's the regular routine. And that is what this guy believes. And so I don't care how many signs he puts up there. And the truth is is, you know, an eighty year old guy didn't go out there and put and put up the sign outside of his church.
He told somebody else to. So that's just another level of having somebody else go out there and put your apology in letters in front of your church that that that's even less of an apology. At least you could go out there and do it yourself. But also on the flip side, I'm going to go out and gamble. I'm going way out on the limb here and say that not a one of us here in this panel has ever set out in the parking lot at the outlet mall and sat and launch and counted the number
of people wearing shorts, our skirts, our pants or whatever. And if you are, and I'm not speaking to us, but if you're that type of person, my advice is go seek counseling because there is a problem there. There is something wrong with your view of the world. If you think that you need to verify and legitimize your view by well, what were they wearing? If that ever comes up in a conversation, then you've already lost.
And that is something that for me, I can't get around. So if anyone ever thinks that, go ahead, figure something out, because the problem is not the person wearing the shorts. It's not the person who you think is wearing something too sexy for your eyes to view. The problem is right there in between the ears. If you want to look in the mirror. Yes, you found the problem. It's you. So with that, Kelly, you said it was a problem if you were out there counting.
Is it okay if you're not counting. Look, I don't have any problem with you. Hey, if I got it, I honestly I did not realize how much lustiness was exuded by braided hair. I'm like, totally freaking out. I don't want to kink shame the ancient Hebrews, but I'm just freaking out on that knowing fact there. So one of the things I really liked about the article was the one protester that like them, that likened all the protesters to fruit inspectors. You know, I got to chuckle out of
that. You know. I guess it was the idea that they were inspecting the pastor and he was a fruit. That that means so And I'm just thinking that was so close. I mean, you were right there, you almost had it right. And and I'm thinking I was thinking, to myself, at least the protest did one thing. If it didn't actually make him understand what he had done wrong, it at least shamed him. And I
don't think that was enough. That's one of the things I wanted to ask everybody if they thought that was enough, and if not, what is something else that this that pastor Bobby can do they make up for it. I know, Scott you kind of mentioned some things that some ways to make up for it, but what are some specific things do you think that he could do to make up for it? Richard, Well, one of the things I wanted to respond to was the was it five or six points that Scott
mentioned? You know, you know what's missing in that list getting to the source of what caused the problem. You cannot make a change if you don't know where the problem's coming from. And that's why I talked about the Bible stuff, because that's in his head. He's got, you know, eighty years of women's property, so he's got a lot of work to do. The other thing that I thought was really interesting about him saying if he was
in court, he wouldn't he would think. You know, about forty years ago I started being a lawyer, and back then you could talk about that stuff in court, but about ten years in most of the courts that I know of, particularly in California and the more you know, sort of liberal states, you cannot mention when a woman was rearing again in a rape trial. It's not allowed. You can't go after her personally. That's irrelevant, you know, it's it's prejudicial. And so that guy is way behind.
Even with the way he's saying, he would let him get out of it, because in most courts you wouldn't know that it would not even be brought up. So it's just it's just an interesting thing. And the other thing thing, I'll guess I'll close up with here and send it back to the next person Scott, is that to none of these guys that he's associated with and he's talking about have any self discipline. I mean they just see a woman have to you know, I mean, well men or men, Well,
you know, I don't have that problem. I don't need your So what's wrong with these guys? I mean, you know, it's it's almost like I don't know, it's just it's sad. And the last thing is, you know, if his all the guys in his church believe this way, maybe the list of them should be put up on the street corner with the list of sexual predators with a sign saying women beware, because these guys
if you wear shorts are coming after you. Yeah, I've been able to make it well over half a century, and I believe you have too. You look like you're younger and I am Richard, but I believe you have too. And I don't think you learn one of us have had the desire to go assault the woman just because she was wearing shorts. Right, No, I would never do that, So Scott, Yeah, yeah, Kelly, you were asking about what would need to what would what should he do?
Right? How should he? How should he fix things in it? And I think that if you listen to what he says, and even if you read through the article. As I was reading through the article, I was like, they're not addressing the problem, right, they're not. He's blaming he's he's uh shaming women for the way that they dress, you know, saying men are men like they're just like the men are the victims here. And that's a ridiculous thing. That's it's just utterly ridiculous for him to.
Yeah, I mean he needs to if he wants to have any kind of restitution or wants to show any kind of genuine intent of changing, he needs to talk to the men in his congregation and saying, no, you are the problems. It's not a question of what somebody is wearing or how they're acting. What matters is you and your self control. Okay, if you can't control yourself around other people, you're the problem. You need to you know, get a little bit of self control or remove yourself from the
situation. Okay. And so it's it's you know, they're kind of softball in here saying oh, we got it. You know he's this minister said something naughty. Oh no, but he did put a sign up. You know, we need to you know, point things at at you know, at what the problem is. And so if unless I hear Pastor Bobby Leonard started talking about that kind of thing, you know, to me, he's just falling well short of having a legitimate apology or making any kind of positive
change. He even said to his congregants, he was like he knew as soon as he said it that he that he struck a nerve there because he was like, well, I you know, I know you're upset with what I said, but I'm right, And he said, I don't want you going home to I don't want you to be all depressed when you go home. I want you to go home empowered and and what seriously, No, I'm going to go home and never come back. That's what's happening because you
aren't part of the problem. And so unless he wants to change that, you know, it's just all going to fall short. But I wanted to touch on a little bit of what Infidol was saying about h sitting at the sitting at the outlet mall. I thought that was kind of funny, but it was. It was a little bit of funny, right smack dab in the middle of a lot of creepy. And so here's the quote that that was from he said. And this is uh, this is quoted from a
recording of his sermon that the Charlotte Observer got. He said, I told my wife, this is the kind of preaching we need. I told my wife, Mama, when we go to Pigeon Forge, to the outlet mall here and sit in the parking lot, you'll find more women going to have shorts on than pants and dresses put together. Well, first of all, yeah, like like we've said, sitting at aola, that's your vacation. Time you go to an outlel you sit a lot and counting people with shorts.
I mean, come on, but he calls his wife mama, and to me, that just rubs me the wrong way. And you know, I've called my wife mom before it, but usually it's like in the context of when we're having a discussion with the kids or something like that. I might be like, well, mom, and I think this, and you know, things like that. But he was saying that he was he was using that as his normal reference to his wife when he was talking to his
congregants. You know, they're not in part of his family. I don't know. It just seemed kind of creepy. And it especially especially because it's nestled right in the middle of a big steaming pile of misogyny. Right. He's dehumanizing and he's objectifying women, and at the same time, he's using phrases like he might as well just go straight to calling her breeding vessel.
I mean, you know, why take the shortcuts here? So you know, to close out my little bit here, I do have some advice for missus Bobby Leonard, and this is I'm going to paraphrase the words of musician Glenn Danzig. Here he says, Mama, tell your children not to walk his way. Tell your children not to hear his words. What they mean, what they say, Mama, And so follow that advice, Mama,
infidel you know, one minute, real quick. Yeah, One thing that I want to say is I found the little irony in the fact that he ignored the fact that and I don't agree with this scripture, but Jesus said that, you know, if someone views a woman with luss that he's already sinned in his heart. So does that negate the sin because they were dressed in a certain way. But I do have a suggestion on solving this problem. Now, I'm sure that more than a few of you have heard of
Oedipus. Well, not the part with his mom, but the part with poking is poking his eyes out. Maybe maybe that's a solution for Bobby Leonard and people like him. Go ahead, go ahead and poke your eyes out, and Kelly take us away. There's another solution that a urologist can take care of, the Bobbitt solution, right, is that what you're talking about?
No, a little lower eliminate the testosterone, right right, right, right, Well, yeah, I appreciate everybody being here that it's been a great conversation and you, our dear viewer, you should go to tiny dot cc slash ACA's merch and check out some of the great merch we have there