He says most women should be denied the vote

My colleague Leila Fadel has an interview with Doug Wilson, pastor of a church network based in Moscow, Idaho. He is far from the most famous Christian conservative in America but has grown influential. He is linked with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who invited Wilson to speak at the Pentagon.

Wilson speaks in favor of an American theocracy—still under the Constitution, which he says he admires, but with dramatic amendments and equally dramatic re-interpretations by the Supreme Court. He would require all officeholders to swear to uphold a Christian Constitution, meaning in effect that they would only be Christian. He would prevent non-Christians from voting unless an individual state favored it. He would outlaw abortion, eliminate same-sex marriage and end protections for LGBTQ people. He would bar many, or even most, women from voting—preferring one vote for each household, typically the husband. He says his church is run this way. A few women vote if they are the head of the household.

Here’s the video on YouTube from the NPR program Newsmakers:

Why talk all this through? Because Wilson is not the only person who dreams of such things; some are close to power; and their ideas say something about the range of thought in this country. The household vote, or banning women from voting, seems particularly trendy. We can say there is no chance of any of this becoming law—there is the matter of the Constitution in its current form; Wilson himself thinks his vision is far off—but a lot of other thigs have happened that seemed impossible.

Wilson’s interview provoked me to think through the household vote a bit more than I had. What it highlights for religious conservatives is the feeling that the family is more important than the individual. Also that the husband should make decisions, not the wife. But I’m not sure it would have the political effect of giving the traditional family more power.

Right now, a traditional husband and wife have two votes, and as their children reach the age of 18 they have even more votes. A single person, or a single parent, has one vote. In Wilson’s utopia the single person and the family would each have one vote. In relative terms, the single person would become more powerful and the family less so! The electorate would inevitably end up voting more often for the interests and concerns of single people. It’s hard not to believe that such results would prompt further tweaks and revisions to the household vote to arrive at the desired outcome. Where would that end?

I also thought of Wilson’s idea that public spaces should be restricted to Christianity—as he told Leila, “Church bells, yes. Minarets, no.” It made me wonder who would decide who gets to count as Christian. What about Mormons around Wilson’s home in Idaho? I have met Protestant conservatives who do not regard Catholics as Christian. My own research has shown me that in the early years of this country, some Protestants seemed to assume that the First Amendment protected the right to join any Protestant denomination! And of course, a leader who was of one particular branch of faith would have difficulty even allowing that much freedom, convinced as he must be that he knows the one true path. Where would that end?

For the moment this is all an intellectual exercise. Wilson’s views are not shared by some other social conservatives. In a recent interview I asked former Vice President Mike Pence about the household vote and he actually laughed. “It’s one person, one vote in this country, and people have bled and died for that principle,” Pence said. Pence argues that many on the “populist right” have ideas for social engineering families in ways that he considers unwise.

But the pastor in Leila’s interview says it is his genuine view of the world, and the only thing that would stop people who agree with him from imposing it is a lack of power to do it. That seems useful to know.