By Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — The Pentagon clarified on Thursday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth thinks women should have the right to vote, despite his sharing of CNN reporting which featured religious leaders he supports saying they would back the repealing of the 19th Amendment.

“Of course, the secretary thinks that women should have the right to vote,” Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters on Thursday.

Hegseth reposted video of a CNN segment with Douglas Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist pastor, who supports repealing the 19th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote. Wilson’s fellow pastors told CNN’s Pamela Brown they also support the idea, saying votes should be made as households and that the men of the household would be the ones actually casting the vote.

“I would support that,” Jared Longshore, executive pastor of Christ Church, told CNN of repealing the 19th Amendment. “And I’d support it on the basis that the atomization that comes from our current system is not good for humans.”

Hegseth shared the video on social media with the message, “All of Christ for All of Life.”

“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,” Kingsley Wilson told reporters on Thursday. “The secretary very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”

Hegseth — a member of a church in Tennessee which is part of Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches — is the most high-profile of Wilson’s followers in the Trump administration. Among the assertions in the governing documents for the CREC is that is “neither lawful nor honorable for women to be mustered for combat service,” and that is “the duty of men—not women—to protect their homelands and nations.”

While Hegseth has made multiple comments in the past saying women should not serve in combat roles in the military, he has since backtracked on those claims, saying he respects all women who serve and is primarily concerned with standards.

Hegseth has also begun holding Christian prayer services at the Pentagon, the first of which featured his pastor from Tennessee from the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, Brooks Potteiger.

In his opening prayer at the service, Potteiger thanked God for President Donald Trump and other leaders who have been “sovereignly appointed,” and “the way that you have used him to bring stability and moral clarity to our lands.”

Pastor Douglas Wilson told CNN it was “very encouraging” to see Hegseth own “what he believes,” including purging diversity, equity and inclusion programs and so-called “woke” policies from the Defense Department.

“It’s not organizationally tied to us, but it’s the kind of thing we love to see,” he told CNN of Hegseth’s prayer services.

Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, declined to say on Thursday what other specific ideas in the video — which included Douglas Wilson’s desire to make the United States “a Christian nation,” his support for making gay sex a crime, and his doubling down on claims that there was “genuine affection” between slaves and their owners — Hegseth did or did not support.

“He (Hegseth) appreciates many of (Wilson’s) writings and teachings. I’m not going to litigate every single aspect of what he may or may not believe in a certain video,” Wilson told reporters.

The-CNN-Wire
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