Marine Gen. Peter Pace is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is not the pope or an archbishop or a TV evangelist. He is entitled to his own opinions, but not if speaking them compromises his first duty.

That duty is to unite the diverse members of America's armed forces in the common purpose of defending the nation. United they must stand, although in reality they are the mirror image of America -- being of many faiths and none, of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and, yes, different sexual orientations.

This last aspect of personal lives is a dangerous social battleground that Gen. Pace marched into thoughtlessly in an interview this week with the Chicago Tribune.

"I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Gen. Pace said. "I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by saying through our policies that it's OK to be immoral in any way."

Let's be clear: The military is not a dating service. Because of the special nature of military life, including the pressure of living in close quarters and the demands of unit cohesion, fraternization, adultery and other illicit relationships cannot be tolerated if good order and military discipline are to be upheld.

But since 1994, the U.S. military has dropped the ridiculous presumption that anyone who is gay is necessarily unfit to serve. That was only fair. After all, the brass never took that view with heterosexuals who have been known to commit their share of drunken immorality while on leave.

The policy for gays is known as "don't ask, don't tell." It condones no immorality -- it assumes that servicemen and -women will do their duty, and it penalizes them only if their private lives become an issue. To be sure, this is an imperfect compromise, but it is a policy that Gen. Pace is duty-bound to respect.

When the general said that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral, he was expressing a view that many Americans share. But the parade ground is not a pulpit and such moralizing has no place in the military, which stands to lose if hostility toward gays seems to have high-level encouragement.

Like it or not, the general is at the top of a pyramid that down in the ranks includes thousands of gay personnel who are serving their nation well in a time of war and should not be made to feel unwanted. As it is, there may not be enough moralists to replace them.

To his credit, Gen. Pace later expressed regret for his remarks, although he stopped short of an apology. He said that he wished that he had focused on the Defense Department policy about gays and "less on my personal moral views." He got that right, because supporting the troops applies to them all.