In the spirit of dredging up things from the past that can bite one in one's rear, I found this lovely post on FireDogLake that I find quite humorous - simply because Santorum really did put his foot in his mouth. Seemingly directed towards more democratic/left leaning women, this particular blog looks to be fairly legit. It has a few quotes from the Huffington Post, and is well written (minus the rather informal verbiage). Not to mention, its off the suggested sites list! I believe the author, like myself, stands agape as they discuss the level to which Santorum has sunk in his mentality. Even for nearly 20 years ago, this seems low. I do have to ask, however, is this a comment on how he views women/unwed mothers -like the author strongly suggests- or is this a glimpse of his view on certain classes within our society. The middle to lower classes do seem to have a higher percentage of unwed mothers.
Basically, in 1994 Santorum got to talking at an event (ironically - on April 1st) about his stance regarding welfare for single mothers. He seemed to believe it best to make sure they knew the father of the baby was before they were assigned benefits. If they didn't know/ refused to list the fathers name - they got rejected. Period. Now, he apparently did try to explain by saying that "If Mom knows that she isn’t gonna receive welfare if she doesn’t tell us who Dad is, y’know maybe she’ll be a little more careful, maybe." While I see a purely logical reasoning for this kind of policy, there are a lot of mothers out there who don't know the father (and decreasing "promiscuity" would be nice for the over all health of our country), I find myself unsure of the intention behind his ideas.
While there certainly are many, many arguments against such a brazen mindset (especially the rights of those single mothers). I sure have to say, he has got some guts! However, the past is the past right? I wonder how his campaign is heading now? That was 18 years ago... maybe things have changed. One can only hope.
