We touched on Republican Presidential candidate, Rick Santorum’s interesting take on contraception in an earlier post.

But Rick doesn’t stop there.

He has been sharing his interesting opinion of female members of the US Armed services serving in the front lines.

When asked of his thoughts on the matter, he declared:

“It 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.”

Emotions, eh?

The ambiguity of his statement and mention of “emotions” led to a frenzy of criticisms.

Patricia Murphy, editor of Citizen Jane Politics and contributor to the Daily Beast,asserted:

“I think the only ‘various other emotions’ women in the military experience are confusion about why they are not being acknowledged for their service and frustration that they are not trusted to do more.”

Critics believed Santorum was denouncing the idea of women in combat because they would become too emotional and thus unreliable.

Later, Santorum clarified this little misunderstanding.

Appearing on the Today Show the following day, Santorum stated:

“…when you have men and women together in combat, I think men have emotions when you see a woman in harm’s way. I think it’s natural. It’s very much in our culture to be protective.”

Are Santorum’s bold assertions justifiable?

Would this ‘chivalrous attitude” toward women really present a problem if women were to join men in active combat?

Do you think male soldiers would fall susceptible to their “natural” need to protect their fellow, female soldiers?

Or is Rick Santorum just getting a little too emotional?