Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promotes repealing women's right to vote

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who oversees about 3 million military service members and civilian employees, reposted a video last week advocating repealing the 19th Amendment, which guarantees women the right to vote. The video is an excerpt from CNN anchor Pamela Brown's interview with Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, who Brown reports believes "women shouldn't be able to vote."

Brown speaks to two pastors in Wilson's Idaho church who agree with Wilson. "In my ideal society, we would vote as households," pastor Toby Sumpter says. "And I would ordinarily be the one to cast the vote." (This is the model also advocated by Wilson.) Pastor Jared Longshore says he supports the repeal of the 19th Amendment because "the current system is not good for humans."

Hegseth is a member of a church that is part of Wilson's network, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), in Tennessee. When a CREC branch recently opened in Washington, DC, Hegseth attended. Longshore delivered the sermon.

Hegseth's response to the video — "All of Christ for All of Life" — is a Christian nationalist slogan used frequently by Wilson. It stands for the idea that Christianity should dominate all aspects of life, including government.

In response to media inquiries, the Pentagon reiterated Hegseth's admiration for Wilson and his ideology. "The Secretary very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson's writings and teachings," Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said.

Beyond repealing women's voting rights, what are Wilson's "writing and teachings"? Let's review.

Wilson argues that slavery benefited blacks and whites and was "based on mutual affection"

Wilson has sought to recast slavery in the pre-Civil War South as a mutually beneficial relationship in many cases. In a 1996 pamphlet co-written by Wilson, Southern Slavery as It Was, he argued that "[s]lavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity." According to Wilson, "[b]ecause of its predominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." He asserts that "[t]here has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world," which he attributes to "the predominance of Christianity."

Wilson claims that "[s]lave life was to [the slaves] a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes and good medical care." He urges people not to "overlook the benefits of slavery for both blacks and whites."

In Wilson's 2005 book, Black and Tan, he defends Southern Slavery as It Was, and writes "that slavery was far more benign in practice than it was made to appear in the literature of the abolitionists." He also claims that slavery was biblically justified, claiming that "the Christians who owned slaves in the South were on firm scriptural ground."

In 2020, Wilson returned to the topic again, saying that slave narratives collected after the Civil War prove "that there were 'many' benevolent masters." Here is one of the examples he provides:

She was a fine woman. The Brown boys and their wives was just as good. Wouldn’t let nobody mistreat the slaves. Whippings was few and nobody get the whip ‘less he need it bad. They teach the young ones how to read and write; say it was good for the Negroes to know about such things.

Nevertheless, Wilson says that he is not "a defender of the system of Southern slavery as it existed prior to the Civil War." He also states that he condemns racism.

He does argue, however, that the Civil War was a mistake. "[W]ho cannot but lament the damage to both white and black that has occurred as a consequence of the way it was abolished?" Wilson asks in Southern Slavery as It Was. Wilson blames the Civil War for sparking a "revolution" that continues "to this day," claiming "slavery has increased in our land as a result."

Wilson describes himself as a "paleo-Confederate." In a 2009 interview with Christianity Today, Wilson said, "I would say we’re fighting in a long war, and that [the Civil War] was one battle that we lost." Wilson also describes Robert E. Lee as "one of the greatest men this nation has ever produced."

Last week, Hegseth announced he was reinstalling a Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The memorial was removed in 2003 following criticism that it "glorified the Southern cause and glossed over slavery." The frieze depicts "an enslaved woman depicted as a “Mammy,” holding the infant child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war." The memorial also includes a Latin phrase pushing the "narrative of the Lost Cause, which romanticized the pre-Civil War South and denied the horrors of slavery." Returning the memorial will cost taxpayers $10 million.

Wilson's unsettling views on women and sex

Wilson's retrograde views on women go well beyond repealing voting rights. Wilson explicitly advocates for "patriarchy," saying that it should be the view of "every biblical Christian." Wilson says, "the wife is to follow the lead of her husband in all things."

Wilson has referred to feminists as "small-breasted biddies" and other women who don't meet his approval as "'lumberjack dykes' and 'cunts.'"

In his 1999 book Fidelity: What It Means to Be a One-Woman Man, Wilson applies his patriarchal worldview of the topic to sex. "A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants," Wilson writes, "A woman receives, surrenders, accepts."

In Her Hand in Marriage: Biblical Courtship in the Modern World, which Wilson published in 1997, he writes that "[w]omen inescapably need godly masculine protection against ungodly masculine harassment." Women who refuse such "masculine protection," Wilson asserts, "are really women who tacitly agree on the propriety of rape."

According to Wilson's 2012 book, Reforming Marriage: Gospel Living for Couples, a husband must assume "lordship in the home." That involves the wife submitting to the husband's views on all matters, including "spending habits, television viewing habits, weight, rejection of his leadership, laziness in cleaning the house, lack of responsiveness to sexual advances." To achieve this, a man must "outline clear expectations, and repeatedly point out her failures." If a wife does not comply, Wilson says the man should report her to the church elders.

Hegseth's nomination was nearly derailed over allegations that he engaged in sexual abuse, including the revelation that "he paid $50,000 as part of a confidentiality agreement to a woman who alleged he sexually assaulted her." The settlement "included a confidentiality clause." In another incident, "[a] California woman told police that Trump Cabinet pick Pete Hegseth physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she 'remembered saying ‘no’ a lot.'"

Hegseth was never criminally charged and denied the allegations.

Wilson supports recriminalizing homosexuality

It is not surprising that Wilson wants the Supreme Court to overturn the Obergefell decision, which established the right to same sex marriage. But Wilson would go even further. In the same video promoted by Hegseth, Wilson argues for recriminalizing homosexuality.

“In the late ’70s and early ’80s, sodomy was a felony in all 50 states,” Wilson says. “That America of that day was not a totalitarian hellhole. In 2003, Wilson stated that someone who is homosexual should be subjected to punishment:

The Bible indicates the punishment for homosexuality is death. The Bible also indicates the punishment for homosexuality is exile. So death is not the minimal punishment for a homosexual. There are other alternatives.

Wilson says that this quote reflects his "rejection of the view that execution for homosexuals was mandatory." He does not specify exactly what the appropriate punishment should be in modern times, but insists that there is some latitude.

As Defense Secretary, Hegseth has banned trans people from serving in the military and ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a ship named after a gay rights activist who served in the Korean War. Previously, Hegseth said he opposed allowing women or LGBTQ people to serve in the military. But he reversed his stance when it became clear he otherwise would not be able to be confirmed as Defense Secretary.