Thirteen years later, campaigning for president, Mr. Gingrich is still trying to tell Americans how to run their lives. He supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. He accuses Mitt Romney of being insufficiently anti-abortion, even pointing out that Mr. Romney expanded access to abortion pills. He lectures black people about valuing jobs and children in the purgatory of housing projects for lacking a work ethic. He signed a personal pledge to, at long last, “uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse.”

The abundant contradictions here are troubling even to some of his most fervent supporters. At a town-hall-style session in Beaufort, S.C., on Thursday, a former Marine drill instructor took the microphone to call Mr. Gingrich as inspiring as Winston Churchill — but also to tell him he remained troubled by his “lapses in personal judgment.” The Marine wondered how Mr. Gingrich could face President Obama in the fall with his past.

Mr. Gingrich responded that he knew the issue would dog him through the campaign, but that he and his wife decided “the country was worth the pain.” He told the Marine — and all voters struggling with the same question — that the decision was one that “you have to make.”

It’s magnanimous of him to be willing to allow voters to decide for themselves on the importance of his moral choices, since he and his party have been so unwilling to allow the public to make its own moral choices.

For too many Republicans, it’s not enough that Americans are free to pray in the house of worship of their choice; they want all children to be required to pray in school. They want to impose their own ideas about sexuality and abortion on everyone. And they love to accuse Democrats of being insufficiently pious. (Rick Perry’s exit from the race on Thursday may mean no more ads accusing President Obama of a “war on religion” and liberals of believing faith is a sign of weakness. Or, it may not, depending on how desperate the other candidates get.)