Pastor who was Pete Hegseth's Pentagon guest explains why women shouldn't vote

Pastor Doug Wilson, who was invited by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to give a sermon at the Pentagon in February, recently explained why he thinks the 19th Amendment should be repealed to disallow women from voting in elections. The self-described Christian nationalist, who has several controversial opinions, expressed that he believes household voting is the way to go for America in an interview with NPR. 

The 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment, the landmark legislative achievement that made women equal citizens, giving them the right to vote, but for many, like Wilson, it drove America to a decline. Wilson sat down with Morning Edition's Leila Fadel at his Moscow, Idaho, church for NPR's Newsmakers video podcast, as he spoke on a range of topics. When the reporter asked when he was against the 19th Amendment, Wilson was quick to respond, "Because it's a good idea." He added that it was one of his favorite questions before explaining why: "This is not an XX or XY chromosome issue. What I would say is that I don't want women voting as individuals." 

Wilson explained that he would want voting to be replaced with household voting where the head of the home casts a vote on behalf of the family, adding that if a woman is the head of the household, she can vote. This idea, "One household, one vote," where the head of the family, mostly the husbands vote has been long held by Christians like Wilson. While many Americans would see this as an unthinkable regression, proponents of the concept believe that this arrangement is what God envisioned in a marriage. In several interviews, Wilson and his followers, including women on the far-right, have defended the idea, elaborating in detail why it was the move to save America. 

However, in his NPR interview, Wilson admitted that his vision for a Christian theocracy isn't possible today, but he said he hoped it would be in the next 250 years. He shared that he is currently focused on banning abortion across the country and making same-sex marriage a crime, saying, "Those are the fish that I would want to fry now." In the interview, he said he opened a D.C. "church service" to cater to what he claimed was the growing number of Christians who follow his teachings in the Trump administration, one of whom is Hegseth, who attends the newly opened D.C. congregation. 

Wilson further added that while his worldview is still held by a minority in the country, his church's new connections to D.C. have recently shifted, "Our vision of what the intersection of theology and politics should be, our theopolitical vision, is closer to getting a hearing," he said after clarifying that Hegseth, despite being a follower doesn't take suggestions from him personally on policy matters.