Rick Santorum Moves From Attacking Gys to Attacking Equality for Women

I sometimes add a logo to posts that describes the Republican Party as the "Bridge to the 11th Century." The slogan is all too appropriate when one looks at Rick Santorum. Not content with attacking LGBT citizens and supporting a re-criminalization of gays through new sodomy laws, "Frothy Mix" now has moved on to insult women and intimate that they are emotionally unfit for combat and other positions in the U.S. military. For Santorum, gays belong hidden in the closet and women belong barefoot and pregnant in the home. Oh, and did I mention that Santorum would like contraception made unavailable to women? It's lunacy that hopefully will wake people up to just how out of the mainstream the GOP has become and motivate them to get out in November and vote for the Democrats to take back the House of Representatives. What's currently happening in the Virginia General Assembly under GOP control ought to be setting off alarms across the country. Here are highlights from the Washington Post on Frothy Mix's insults to women:

When asked about the Pentagon’s plan to allow women to serve in some combat roles, Santorum told CNN’s John King: “I want to create every opportunity for women to be able to serve this country . . . but I do have concerns about women in front-line combat.

“I think that could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved. It already happens, of course, with the camaraderie of men in combat, but I think it would be even more unique if women were in combat,” Santorum added. “And I think that’s not in the best interests of men, women or the mission.”

Such remarks may please some social conservatives who were never that keen on women serving in the military, but this may not sit well with women who work, sometimes in male-dominated jobs.

This is not the first time Santorum has ventured into this territory. In 2005 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported:

So not long after his first book, “It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good,” hit Washington bookstores over the Fourth of July weekend, his opponents were sifting through the 430 pages at warp speed -- culling controversial passages in which the Pennsylvania Republican criticizes public schools, America’s “divorce culture” and argues that more American families should consider whether both parents really need to work. . . .

Many women, he adds, have told him that it is more “socially affirming to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children.”

That ideology, he says, has been shaped by feminists who demean the work of women who stay at home as primary caregivers.

“Sadly the propaganda campaign launched in the 1960s has taken root,” said Santorum. “The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.”

Santorum might want to rethink that and figure out a way to walk back some of that. With women making up almost half the workforce (and now out-numbering men among workers with at least a bachelor’s degree), Santorum’s remarks sound badly off-key.

It's Santorum who is the radical, not feminists or working women. The man needs to be sent into permanent political retirement.