In the debate on the policy commonly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” some have taken to saying service by open homosexuals is no morally different to religion than is service by those who have divorced and/or remarried.  That argument fails, however, because the military works actively to support marriages and prevent divorce: 

After recognizing an alarming increase in divorce rates among military personnel in 2004, the Army set out to reverse the trend by spending $2 million on a variety of marriage programs…[One] program [was] designed to provide Soldiers, who are facing a potential divorce or break-up, with information to assist in “flattening the relational wave when they hit the beach for redeployment and reintegration.”

There is, perhaps, no sadder sight than a once loved wedding ring that has been discarded and thrown in the corner of a dresser drawer or sitting in the window of a dank and dirty downtown pawn shop…All of this is the tragic results of forgetting that marriage is a gift from God and is to be treasured and preserved.

A military Chaplain or member is free to highlight the negatives of divorce; the US military recognizes the strengths that strong families and marriages provide to the service.  By the same token, “remarriage” is not a protected class within the military.  Within the bounds of respectful discourse, military members are free to disagree, and express such disagreement, on the morality or correctness of remarriage.

On the other hand, speculation about military policies under a repealed DADT (“speculation” because no official paths have been announced or formalized) has been that sexual preference would be a protected class, and military members would not be free to discuss the negatives, or disagree on the morality, of homosexuality.

Thus, the military’s treatment of the two issues is different, and the suggested impact to religious freedom in the military is different as well.