Christine O'Donnell, the Republican
candidate for the U.S. Senate from Delaware, on Wednesday night
defended the law that bans gay and bisexual troops from serving
openly.
O'Donnell's remarks came a day after a
federal judge ordered the Pentagon to halt its implementation of the
law, known as “Don't Ask, Don't Tell.”
During a televised debate between
O'Donnell and her Democratic rival, Chris Coons, the Tea Party
favorite likened regulating open gay service to adultery.
“A federal judge recently ruled that
we have to overturn 'don’t ask, don’t tell.' There are a couple
of things we need to say about that,” O'Donnell said. “First of
all, judges should not be legislating from the bench. Second of all,
it’s up to the military to set the policy that the military
believes is in the best interest of unit cohesiveness and military
readiness. The military already regulates personal behavior in that
it doesn’t allow affairs to go on within your chain of command. It
does not allow if you are married to have an adulterous affair within
the military. So the military already regulates personal behavior
because it feels that it is in the best interest of our military
readiness. I don’t think that Congress should be forcing a social
agenda on to our military. I think we should leave that to the
military.” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this
page.)
During
O'Donnell's come-from-nowhere primary victory over Rep. Mike Castle,
O'Donnell backers attempted to gay bait her rival. The
surrogates suggested Castle is gay in a video posted at the Tea
Party-backed website Liberty.com. In the video, a gleeful female
newscaster says the “rumor” on Castle is that he is “cheating
on his wife with a man.”