Carl Paladino, the Republican candidate for governor of New York, told a gathering in Brooklyn that children should not be “brainwashed” into thinking that being gay is acceptable.

I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t.

For the record, Mr. Paladino is married with children and also has a child by his mistress. So I guess he knows what he’s talking about when he lectures other people on the virtues of family values.

He’s a real nice fit into the same party that claims Newt Gingrich, who has been married three times, including to the woman he was seeing while still married to his second wife; Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, who availed himself of prostitutes both at home and in Washington, D.C., including making a reservation while on the floor of the Senate; Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, who had his parents buy off the family of the staff member who’s wife he was bedding; and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, who made hiking the Appalachian Trail the only wilderness adventure that requires the use of a condom. Welcome to the family, Carl.

What’s ironic is that all of those men either remained in office while they were boning up, so to speak, on their family values, or they at least avoided resigning because of them. On the other hand, the only Washington scoundrel who was caught doing inappropriate things and had to leave town before sunset was Mark Foley, and that was because he was gay. Not that I’m defending a man who hits on barely-legal teenage boys, but if they had been women, he’d have gotten high-fives from the other silver daddies and would be in contention to be Speaker of the House.

It’s not the feat; it’s the sanctimony.