Pentagon weakly corrects Pete Hegseth's views on women having the right to vote

The Department of Defense is claiming that Pete Hegseth does believe women should be allowed to vote after the secretary shared a video in which pastors associated with his church called to criminalize gay sex and repeal the 19th Amendment.

"Of course the secretary thinks that women should have the right to vote," Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said at a Thursday press conference. "I'm not going to litigate every single aspect of what he may or may not believe in a certain video."

Hegseth reposted a CNN segment last week featuring interviews with several pastors, including Doug Wilson, a self-described "Christian Nationalist" from Moscow, Idaho. Wilson is the head pastor at the church Hegseth is a member of, Christ Church, which recently opened a branch in Washington, D.C.

Wilson said in the video that he wants to "go back to" a time when sodomy was illegal in the U.S., and that women should not be able to hold positions that "involve exercising authority over men" or serve in the military. He also said that voting should be done as a household, which should be run by the husband.

“Women are the kind of people that people come out of," Wilson said. When asked to clarify if he believes women are just meant to have babies, Wilson replied, “It doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically. The wife and mother, who is the chief executive of the home, is entrusted with three or four of five eternal souls.”

Another pastor in the video, Toby Sumpter, agreed that families should vote as a household, stating, "And I would ordinarily be the one to cast the vote. But I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household." A third pastor said he would support repealing the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

Hegseth "very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson's writings and teachings," Press Secretary Wilson (no relation) added. He not not address the video's claims about sodomy.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host who infamously does not believe in germs or washing his hands, has also previously said that he does not believe women should be allowed to serve in the military, stating in a November segment that "men and women are different."

"I love women service members who contribute amazingly [but] everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated. And complication in combat means casualties are worse,” Hegseth said. He did not provide evidence supporting his claim that women soldiers lead to more casualities.