Smith defends candidate’s ‘personal’ views on gays
Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith says her party will not discriminate against anyone, including a candidate with religious views that appear to discriminate against gays and lesbians.
“The views he expressed are his personal views in the context of him being a pastor and I’m not going to discriminate against anyone, not on the basis of sexual orientation and not on the basis of their religion,” Smith said Monday, referring to her Edmonton-South West nominee Allan Hunsperger.
“I believe in freedom of religion and I believe religious people do have an opportunity and should be encouraged to run for political office.”
Hunsperger, a minister with The House church in Tofield, made headlines this week over a blog he posted last year that decried “godless” and “wicked” public education, and questioned the Edmonton Public board’s policy of welcoming and accepting gay students.
In the blog, he wrote that gays “will suffer the rest of eternity in the lake of fire, hell, a place of eternal suffering.” The blog post was removed Sunday afternoon.
Hunsperger spoke to media briefly when he showed up to a Wildrose campaign rally at the Coast Edmonton Plaza Hotel on Monday.
“I entirely support Danielle and her commitment that a Wildrose government will not legislate on social issues,” he said. “What I said was that I love people and everybody. I have no intolerance about anybody, but I do have a personal religious view. That’s what I stated in the blog.”
Meanwhile, more of Hunsperger’s controversial views surfaced when a pair of videos from a sermon were posted on Youtube.
In one, from a sermon delivered on July 11, 2011, he said that God had decided that the Holy Land belongs to Israel.
In the other video, Hunsperger suggests circumcision can prevent HIV, and the bubonic plague would have been prevented if people had paid attention to the scriptures.
While Smith has suggested the Tories have been fearmongering about Wildrose policies and candidates, Tory Leader Alison Redford said it was Wildrose that raised social issues when it advocated legislating conscience rights.
“My overall concern though is that what we see in the Wildrose party is people who are running for office who really are saying things that I completely disagree with,” Redford said.
She dismissed any similarity between Hunsperger’s comments and past opposition to same-sex marriage by prominent Tories such as Energy Minister Ted Morton.
Meanwhile, the Wildrose party unveiled a “deficit clock” as part of its efforts to show Progressive Conservative mismanagement of the provincial purse.
As of Monday morning, the clock showed a rising tally of more than $15.9 billion in deficits racked up by the Tories since 2008.
The Wildrose says this figure is compiled from annual budget deficits, plus an “unreported capital deficit” the stems from the government’s borrowing of money to pay for projects. The Tories have disputed the Wildrose’s calculations.
The clock concept was first featured by the Laurence Decore-led Liberals, who used a “debt clock” to attack the Ralph Klein PCS in the 1993 provincial election.
The Raj Sherman-led Liberals also used a clock earlier in the campaign to show the extra costs consumers have borne due to the PC policy of electricity deregulation.
WITH FILES FROM JAMES WOOD AND TONY SESKUS, CALGARY HERALD