We have a long tradition of trying to legislate morality in this country, which makes it all the more earth shattering when political leaders like Mark Sanford — who announced yesterday that his recent “disappearance” was in fact a trip to Argentina to visit his mistress — fess up to sexual indiscretions.

Republicans seem to have been tangled up in a few more scandals lately than their Democratic counterparts. Whether it was John Ensign cheating on his wife, Larry Craig doing a homo tap dance in a Minneapolis airport bathroom stall or Mark Foley telling teenage male Congressional pages to “get a ruler out and measure it for me,” the GOP has had a rough time living up to it’s self-proclaimed title as the party of morality and family values lately.

Democrats aren’t immune to these types of scandals. Former President Bill Clinton canoodled with an intern (and a few others) and Elliott Spitzer likes the high-priced hookers.

The point is, recent scandals should show us that it’s time to separate our moral leaders from our political ones.

Now I know what you’re saying. If we no longer look to our political leaders for moral guideposts, Washington will be more out of control than it already is.

I get it, but that’s not what I’m saying.

Every one of us, whether we’re religious or not, goes through each day following a moral compass. Sometimes our values are based on a holy text of some sort, other times they’re simply a set of values handed down from our elders. Whatever the case, our laws are based on these values, and while our leaders are in Washington or the state capitol building or city hall or where ever, they should feel beholden to the laws of the land above all else.

Personal faith is great to have, but the minute that you get blinded by your convictions is the minute you start judging others for not following the same set of values that you do. Our country is based on freedom within the parameters of the law, not within the parameters of the Bible. Religious leaders in this country condemn countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia who enforce strict laws based on the Koran and then in the same breath argue for prayer in schools and gay marriage bans. You can’t have it both ways.

People of faith believe that when you die, you will be judged by the almighty for how you conducted yourself on Earth. So if judgment awaits Clinton, Foley, Spitzer, Ensign and the like, why should we feel compelled to judge them for their mistakes as well? When did we become Gods? When were we endowed by God with the ability to judge our fellow man?

What Craig and John Edwards have taught us is that good men who do good work in the service of the American public can let lust get in the way. How is that different than your neighbor who cheated no his wife with his secretary?

We should allow these men, who have willingly destroyed their own families and careers, to be judged by God. We should allow men — and women — to make mistakes and not throw stones when they stand before us and admit their mistakes.

Now of course this isn’t all to say that we shouldn’t hold our public servants accountable for their mistakes, I’m simply saying that as long as we continue looking to them to not only be good public servants, but to be moral leaders as well, our faith will continue to be shattered time after time as they inevitably falter.

We need to learn to look at these people as the fallible humans they are and let them make governance decisions based on reason, not on looking virtuous all the time for fear of being judged on anything but their performance as a legislator.

These men and women should be judged for what they do in the halls of our public buildings, not behind the closed doors of their bedrooms.