The armed forces deserve more than a Harry Reid rush to judgment. Much more than the matter of open service by homosexual persons is at stake in the debate. Topics up for consideration include the military's definitions of marriage and family-which the Pentagon's recommendations would clearly undermine-and the religious liberty of military chaplains and individual service members, who face the possibility of limited or no advancement if they decline to treat issues of sexual conduct in the same neutral manner the armed forces apply to non-behavioral characteristics like race.

The wisdom of placing the U.S. military in the vanguard of the debate over the definition of marriage and the nature of the family is highly questionable.

Current law is clear: Under the federal Defense of Marriage Act, marriage is solely the union of a man and a woman, and that applies fully to the armed forces. Certainly, the Obama Administration's increasingly shameless attempts in federal court to undermine the Defense of Marriage Act and the current law on open service by homosexual persons inspires no confidence in the intentions of this report's framers.

The willingness of our service men and women to give their lives for the nation carries with it the corollary that Congress should be willing to give special weight to their voices on issues of military service. That merits more than one week of consideration in a lame duck session with an expansive agenda of overdue legislative priorities. Preserving religious liberty and the institution of marriage, in fact, are timeless priorities that no session of Congress, lame duck or otherwise, should ever give such short shrift.

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