{"id":535246,"date":"2026-03-12T09:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T09:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/535246\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T09:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T09:43:08","slug":"sa-liberals-dump-candidate-who-said-homosexuality-opens-up-demonic-realms-after-initially-standing-by-him-south-australian-election-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/535246\/","title":{"rendered":"SA Liberals dump candidate who said homosexuality \u2018opens up demonic realms\u2019 after initially standing by him | South Australian election 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Liberal candidate in South Australia\u2019s upcoming state election has been dumped after his \u201cshocking and extreme\u201d views on abortion, same-sex marriage, gender transitioning and feminism were aired by his Labor rival.<\/p>\n

The leader of the SA Liberals, Ashton Hurn, on Wednesday stood by Carston Woodhouse<\/a>, who had been running for the seat of Wright in Adelaide\u2019s north, after his appearances on the evangelical Christian podcast ElijahFire surfaced.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Hurn said Woodhouse \u201cwill no longer be the candidate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stood here yesterday, and I made myself clear that I did not support the comments made by a particular candidate. That remains true today, and that person is no longer a candidate for the Liberal party at this state election,\u201d she told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still maintain very strongly that people are entitled to have their view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hurn refused to say whether Woodhouse had been disendorsed or had resigned and added that he remained under an employment contract with the SA Liberal party.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

But the Liberals\u2019 SA state director, Alex Hyde, confirmed Woodhouse had been asked to step down.<\/p>\n

He said he had met with Woodhouse and \u201cdiscussed the need for our campaign to remain focused on our policy priorities\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of being asked to step down, and in support of our team and campaign remaining focused, Mr Woodhouse has agreed to withdraw his candidacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Woodhouse does not shirk from his deeply held views and wants to see the Liberal party succeed in the election and hold this terrible Labor government to account\u201d, he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

He said the electoral commission had been informed of the decision.<\/p>\n

In videos of the podcast conversations, aired in a press conference on Wednesday by the incumbent member for Wright, Blair Boyer, Woodhouse describes feminism as \u201cdemonic\u201d, says there is \u201cthis illusion that you can somehow change your sex\u201d and asks \u201cwho knows what demonic realms we\u2019ve opened up to the world \u2026 by accepting homosexuality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Alex Antic, a Liberal senator for South Australia, defended Woodhouse in federal parliament on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t read what this guy has said, frankly, because I don\u2019t care about anything that\u2019s written in the media in South Australia, but I\u2019ll say this, if this guy is disendorsed, or if he feels compelled to leave, we might as well shut the doors on this election with one week to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Thursday afternoon, Boyer, the SA minister for education, training and skills, criticised Hurn and the SA Liberals\u2019 handling of the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is completely uncharted waters for South Australian state elections, perhaps not just South Australia \u2026 The events of the last 24 hours are quite astonishing,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are unprecedented circumstances. Ashton Hurn should have done the right thing straight away upon learning about these extreme views that were held by Carston Woodhouse, saying homosexuality is demonic, saying that feminism is demonic, that Islam is poisonous \u2026 that [should be] the point at which Ashton Hurn takes a stand and says this person should be disendorsed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodhouse was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Liberal candidate in South Australia\u2019s upcoming state election has been dumped after his \u201cshocking and extreme\u201d views…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-535246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}