Pete Hegseth’s Pastor Returns to Say Women Voting Is a ‘Bad Idea’

After Hegseth boosted Doug Wilson’s CNN interview slamming women voting and gay sex, the Christian nationalist told the Associated Press he's "grateful" to Hegseth and yes, he's against the 19th Amendment. 

Politics
Pete Hegseth’s Pastor Returns to Say Women Voting Is a ‘Bad Idea’

There are not enough adjectives in all the languages of the universe to describe how deeply I loathe Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The former weekend Fox News anchor—who wasn’t even good enough to get promoted to primetime anchor—has used his position as head of the U.S. Defense Department to remove women and people of color from leadership positions, erase people of color from U.S. military history, support the Confederacy, and get the Navy to rename a ship named after gay rights leader Harvey Milk and review ships named after other civil rights icons like Harriet Tubman, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Thurgood Marshall, and Cesar Chavez. Because the real threat to our nation’s security is a boat named after a woman who helped free slaves in the 1800s, and not the convicted sexual predator in charge who pardoned the January 6 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol and attacked police officers.

Which is all to say, it’s a fucking fantastic time to be an American—as long as you’re an anti-woman, anti-gay, bigoted, Christian nationalist, like Doug Wilson, the pastor who co-founded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, of which Hegseth is a member. Wilson wants to ban gay sex and doesn’t think women should vote—ideas that Hegseth clearly has no problem with. Last week, Wilson was interviewed by CNN, and Hegseth caused a firestorm when he reposted the interview on Twitter with the church’s motto, “All of Christ for All of Life.”

“I was very grateful to him for doing that,” Wilson told the Associated Press on Monday, after Hegseth’s tweet made headlines. “He was, in effect, reposting it and saying, ‘Amen’ at some level.” The CREC has 130 churches across the U.S. and recently opened its first Washington, D.C. spot, Christ Church DC. Hegseth attended its first Sunday Service.

“My wife votes, my daughters vote, if people rush to conclusions from what they heard on the CNN piece, that’s a sad thing,” Wilson continued. “At the same time, I think the 19th Amendment was a bad idea.” I’m sorry…what conclusion were we not supposed to rush to?


In the CNN interview, which aired August 7, Wilson said that “women are the kind of people that people come out of,” and pushed the idea that households should vote, not individuals, because “the wife and mother, who is the chief executive of the home, is entrusted with three or four or five eternal souls.” Makes perfect sense—if I had a nickel for every time a woman complained about having to care for her kids and walk into a voting booth once every four years…I’d have zero fucking nickels. Even trying to make a joke about this feels like a waste of all our time.

In the same interview, CNN’s Pamela Brown also spoke with two other CREC pastors, Toby Sumpter, who further stated that households should cast the vote, and Jared Longshore, who said the 19th Amendment should be repealed. “I had no problem with how Pastor Jared answered the question,” Wilson told the AP. “I would support that.” Again, apologies for jumping to the conclusion that Wilson saying he doesn’t think women should vote meant that he doesn’t think women should vote. Next time…I’ll just punch myself in the face.

In an emailed statement to Jezebel, Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Hegseth is “a proud member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which was founded by Pastor Doug Wilson.” He added that the Secretary “very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.” OK!

“Our issue is not a problem with the enfranchisement of women; our problem is with the disenfranchisement of the household,” Wilson concluded in his AP interview, before reiterating, “The issue is not keeping females from voting, the issue for us is we want households to have a say.”

Sounds a lot like, We don’t want to ban abortion, we only want to send abortion rights to the states, if you ask me. But I’m sure I’m just being hysterical 🙂


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