NPR Asked Pastor Doug Wilson Why He Rejected Women’s Right to Vote. He said, “Because It’s a Good Idea.”
@DOWResponse
By 
Nadia Santiago
Wilson went national after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invited him to give a 15-minute sermon inside the Pentagon in February 2026, broadcast on Pentagon TV inside. Reporters were quick to point out that the self-described Christian nationalist wants to repeal the 19th Amendment, and NPR’s Leila Fadel sat down with him for an interview at his home in Moscow, Idaho.
On the record, Wilson said that the abolition of women’s right to vote was “a good idea,” that a Muslim woman could not hold her position in Christian America, defended the 2016 section on “rape justification” by comparing women who reject patriarchy to a man who leaves his wallet on the dashboard, and once wrote that slavery in the American South was often based on intimate relationships.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had a self-described pastor of Christian nationalism give a roughly 15-minute sermon inside the Pentagon in February 2026, which was broadcast on Pentagon television, as part of a monthly Christian worship service Hegseth began in the building around May 2025. The pastor is Doug Wilson, who leads Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, EC Pressed the head of the church. Its Washington, DC plant is visited by figures from the Trump administration, including Hegseth.
In a July 6, 2026 NPR report by Leila Fadel, religious scholars described Wilson’s former teachings as “out of the ordinary.” Fadel stayed with him in Moscow.
Wilson wrote a 1996 book, “Southern Slavery, As It Was,” which argued that slavery in the American South was often “a relationship based on love.” Historians widely criticized it as white-collar slavery, and the University of Idaho published a rebuttal entitled “Southern Slavery As It Wasn’t.” Wilson disputes that it is considered “slavery” and says he is not calling for its return.
Asked why he wanted to repeal the 19th amendment, Wilson said, “Because it’s a good idea,” then added, “I wouldn’t put a hard Christian, strong theocracy in the country, like it is now.”
Wilson told Fadel that he wants to replace individual voting with “household voting,” a system already in use at his church, where the head of the household votes. Asked who that usually is, Wilson replied, “A man.” Widows and other female heads of households could still vote.
Fadel asked what happens to a Muslim woman who is single and runs her own home in Christian America. Wilson said he will not hold office because “he could not swear to respect the Christian Constitution.” As for public non-Christian worship, he told Fadel, “church bells, yes. Minarets, no,” because “public space would belong to Christ.”
Pressed on a 2016 book in which she wrote that women who leave “the protections of fathers and brothers” are giving “a tacit, legally ambiguous acceptance, not an open acceptance of the legitimacy of rape,” Wilson defended the verse with an analogy: a man who leaves his wallet on the dashboard in a bad place is “against the rapist.” He said he is against rape and explains the consequences, he does not encourage it.
Regarding homosexuality, Wilson taught that death or banishment are valid Old Testament punishments. He said that Fadel’s execution is “a great penalty,” not a minimum, and that the court’s magistrate could “deal with the social problem of sodomy and pride” without “shooting people.”
Wilson downplayed the direct influence on Hegseth, saying the two “met a few times, texted each other,” and that “pastors should stay on track.” When asked to describe his ideal Christian world, he replied, “It would look like blue clouds and unicorns, and everyone would be happy.” He puts the timeline at about 250 years and calls the process “a great experiment in democracy.”
For now, he told Fadel that his political vision is “closer to being heard” than at any time in his 40 years of preaching.
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