GOP candidates divide over drafting women

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has come out against drafting American women for combat roles in the military, putting him at odds with at least three of his GOP rivals for the presidential nomination.

“The idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in close combat, I think, is wrong. It is immoral,” Cruz said during a Sunday campaign event in New Hampshire.

Cruz’s comments came less than 24 hours after ABC News moderator Martha Raddatz brought up the issue at Saturday night’s Republican debate. Raddatz asked Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if women should be required to register with Selective Service in case a military draft is reinstated. All three answered in the affirmative though Bush emphasized a draft would not happen.

Cruz, Donald Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich didn’t say anything at the time, but on Sunday, Cruz staked out an opposing position.

“As I was sitting there listening to that conversation, my reaction was, ‘Are you guys nuts?’” Cruz told a Peterborough, N.H., audience. “We have had enough with political correctness, especially in the military. Political correctness is dangerous.”

The debate exchange created an immediate social media uprising from grass-roots conservatives—evangelical and otherwise—who expressed dismay that no one offered an opposing opinion.

“I was shocked,” said Cathy Ruse, a senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council. “This issue is very important to presidential politics; we look to the next president not simply to slow down the pace of Obama-style social engineering, but to reverse it.”

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood released a statement in opposition to the proposal, arguing it goes against historic norms and is incompatible with Christian principles: “Christian dads should never allow their little girls to die for them. This is the opposite of manhood. This is the opposite of honor.”

In December, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced all branches of the U.S. military would, without exception, open combat positions to women who met the necessary requirements. Last week, the top Army and Marine Corps officers told U.S. Senate lawmakers the military should take the next step and require young women to register for the draft.

Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, told me there was a huge difference between allowing women who qualified to serve in combat and forcing all women to do so.

“During the debate, my Twitter feed lit up with conservative women making this distinction,” she said. “Our daughters should never be forced to serve in combat roles. It’s bad for women and bad for military readiness.”

The issue has the potential to create a new fault line among social conservatives, including evangelicals, who until now have more often split over immigration or electability. Evangelicals’ views on those issues vary, but they’re almost universally opposed to requiring women to serve in the military.

Christie has gained little traction with evangelicals, but Rubio and Bush have maintained blocs of supporters who could be turned off by the controversial proposal. Cruz—who won the Iowa caucuses by three percentage points but carried evangelicals by 12 points—could stand to gain voters by opposing women’s inclusion in the draft.

Some evangelical leaders, including Nance and Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called for all candidates to clarify their positions on the issue.

“The idea that men and women have no differences is part of the insanity of our time,” Moore wrote in an email. “We shouldn’t codify that insanity into our military policy.”

The Bush and Rubio campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.