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.”