The Pentagon says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disagrees with revoking women’s right to vote, after he reposted a video last week about Christian nationalist pastors who say they want to repeal the 19th Amendment and oppose women serving in certain combat and leadership positions.
“Of course the secretary thinks that women should have the right to vote,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.
Pressed on why he reposted the video, Wilson said, “The secretary is a proud member of a church that is affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which was founded by Pastor Doug Wilson. The secretary very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”
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In the CNN video reposted by Hegseth, Wilson and other CREC pastors and churchgoers say women should submit to their husbands.
“Women are the kind of people that people come out of. … It doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically,” Wilson says in the video.
The pastors and churchgoers say women are the chief managers of the household and children, while men are heads of the household. In their ideal society, men would vote on behalf of the family.
The pastors in the video also said they want the United States to be a Christian republic. Wilson calls for the criminalization of homosexuality, and does not support women serving in certain military or leadership roles.
Hegseth’s sharing of the video on X was accompanied by his comment, “All of Christ for All of Life.” Wilson told The Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday that the phrase is the church’s tagline used to end services.
“So, he was reposting it and saying ‘Amen’ at some level,” Wilson told the AP.
When Military Times asked the Pentagon press secretary Thursday if Hegseth was saying, “Amen,” she replied, “He is a very proud Christian and has those traditional Christian viewpoints.”
Pressed by Military Times to clarify which traditional Christian viewpoints in the video Hegseth held, the press secretary declined to do so.
“We’re not going to get down to the nitty gritty on all of that stuff,” she told reporters.
Earlier this week, Democratic congresswomen, including several military veterans, demanded Hegseth apologize and resign after reposting the video.
Asked whether Hegseth would do so, the press secretary said, “Absolutely not.”
Air Force veteran Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., told Military Times the defense secretary’s repost was “unacceptable political-religious advocacy for a cabinet member.”
Army veteran Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said that the views expressed in the video are “antiquated, flat out wrong and — more dangerously — designed to justify discrimination and mistreatment of women, including those who sacrifice in uniform to defend Americans.”
Doug Wilson, a Navy veteran who served on submarines, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that putting women on submarines was “like having a playpen that you put 50 cats in and then drop catnip in the middle of it.”
“Whatever happens is going to be ugly. And if you think it’s going to advance the cause of women and make sailors start treating women less like objects, then you haven’t been around the block very many times,” he said.
Prior to Hegseth’s confirmation as defense secretary, he questioned the role of women in combat positions, all of which were opened to women by Defense Secretary Ash Carter in 2016.
Since 2016, women have earned positions as Army Rangers, Green Berets and Navy combat-craft crewman after completing the same grueling tests as men.
“I’m straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth told podcaster Shawn Ryan prior to his nomination last year. “It hasn’t made us more lethal. [It] has made fighting more complicated.”
Army veteran Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who ultimately confirmed Hegseth’s nomination, pushed him during his confirmation hearing to say that he would allow women who meet the standards to continue serving in combat.
“Women will have access to ground combat roles given the standards remain high,” he replied.
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