Mark Sanford's Mistress: Why Should We Care?

Politicians, regardless of their capabilities and effectiveness as politicians, are often held to a moral standard the public itself fails to live up to. Given the statistics on failed marriages, cheating, and prostitution, we are bound to discover that behind the public persona, some politicians engage in these activities, too. Their personal lives are usually irrelevant to their jobs, but we seem to insist, nonetheless, that their personal shortcomings are indicative of poor character and therefore poor job performance. Rarely do we consider that some of the heaviest drinkers and most unfaithful men were our most successful presidents, but that is besides the point. Sometimes, personal problems ARE relevant to a politician's job, and it is important that we recognize when and why.

Take Eliot Spitzer for example. The prostitution scandal he was involved with sent the public into an uproar, but many were outraged for the wrong reasons, demonizing him for the sexual acts he engaged in without relating it to his stance on the law. What made Spitzer's actions so detestable was not the fact that he spent nights with a prostitute, but that he publicly spoke out against and fought prostitution, criminalizing the very woman he was employing for his own sexual pleasure. On the receiving end of sexual services himself, Spitzer took no responsibility for the practice he believed to be so morally corrupt. Meanwhile, he politically attacked the women making a living from that very practice. Beyond the issue of hypocrisy, the sexist implications of his political policy in comparison with his personal behavior is detestable and absolutely inexcusable in an individual governing a part of this country.

Mark Sanford's mistress has recently caused a similar sense of outrage amongst the American people. His proclamations of love for his Argentine mistress have everyone talking, and the sexual nature of his e-mails to her are considered appalling. While these e-mails are certainly damaging to his marriage and personal character -- as well they should be -- many have failed to recognize the importance of his actions in relation to his political beliefs. To fight against the rights of LGBT Americans by claiming that same-sex marriage would destroy the traditional foundation of marriage is not only hypocritical, but homophobic and sexist as well. His actions imply that men who cheat on their wives are in no way responsible for the declining state of marriage, and also that same-sex couples, even when faithful to one another, should never be considered as pure and honest as even the worst and most unfaithful of heterosexual marriages. We should be outraged not at the specific contents of his e-mail, but his blatantly deceptive and offensive political statements on the subject of marriage.

We deserve to be outraged, and it is important that we express that outrage, but we must direct our disapproval towards the appropriate issue. Why is it any of our concern if Sanford's marriage falls to ruin? We should be concerned about the problems affecting us as citizens. We should be concerned about how, as politicians, these individuals have hurt our country and our people. As for what they have done as people and as spouses, we need only to worry about how those actions stand against their policies and political practice.