By Idrees Ali
(Reuters) -U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth supports a woman’s right to vote, the Pentagon said on Thursday, days after he reposted a video on X of a pastor advocating repealing the right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
“All of Christ for All of Life,” Hegseth wrote on his personal X account last week alongside the nearly 7-minute video.
In the reposted video, Pastor Jared Longshore, with the Christ Church, says he would support repealing the Constitution’s 19th amendment which in 1920 granted women the right to vote.
“Of course the secretary thinks that women should have the right to vote,” Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson told reporters on Thursday. She did not explain why he had reposted the video in the first place.
The video is a CNN segment focusing largely on another pastor, Doug Wilson, a Christian nationalist who founded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. The spokesperson said Hegseth is part of a congregation Pastor Wilson founded.
“He (Hegseth) appreciates many of his (Pastor 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,” the spokesperson said.
In April, Hegseth canceled a program that sought to increase the role of women in national security sectors that was first signed into law in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump. While a student at Princeton, Hegseth’s views on feminism drove tension.
Since becoming defense secretary in January, Hegseth has been holding Christian prayer services at the Pentagon. Hegseth has brought up his Christian faith in testimony to Congress, at public events and in TV interviews.
Although the U.S. military is predominantly Christian, its ranks include service members of many faiths as well as those who are nonreligious. Non-denominational prayer services are a common feature at military events.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Howard Goller)
