South Australia political party dumps Christian candidate over anti-gay, anti-feminist rants

A major race was rocked by revelations that pastor-politician Carston Woodhouse actively promotes religious extremism

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There’s a big election taking place in the state of South Australia next week, and one of the most conservative candidates on the ballot just dropped out—or was pushed out—after his party’s leaders realized he’s a conservative Christian bigot.

Here’s what’s going on: Much like the U.S. midterms, all officials in one legislative chamber will be on the ballot along with half of the officials in the other chamber. At the moment, the more left-wing Labor Party hopes to maintain its majority while the more right-wing Liberal Party hopes to flip one or both chambers.

One of the races, in the district of Wright, is between the Labor Party’s Blair Boyer (the incumbent) and the Liberal Party’s Carston Woodhouse.

Carston Woodhouse (screenshot via YouTube)

This is a reliably pro-Labor district, but Woodhouse was a relatively unknown quantity. You never know if voters are eager for a big change. And if Woodhouse had the Liberal Party behind him, there’s always the possibility of an upset.

That’s why the Liberal Party’s page promoting Woodhouse suggested he was a sensible candidate who cares about public service, helping the homeless, affordability, and accountability. Things that everyone could get behind.

Carston is strong, principled and community-minded with a proven track record of success across diverse industries as well as a deep commitment to service.

Bringing extensive international and local experience across hospitality, education, and humanitarian work, he has worked directly with homeless communities and supported development efforts in war-torn nations.

Like many South Australians, Carston understands firsthand the effects of Labor’s cost-of-living crisis, record ambulance ramping, and has faced the tough reality of relocating his family amid Australia’s highest-ever housing costs.

Carston is passionate about addressing the impact of recent government overreaches. If everyday citizens are not empowered to take responsibility for their nation’s decisions, a disconnected political class will continue eroding our living standards and the freedoms we hold dear.

Carston is standing to ensure government accountability, and common-sense leadership that puts people first and restores fairness for all South Australians.

Sounds perfectly decent. It doesn’t even mention his religious views or the fact that he’s a pastor at the Adelaide-based Field of Dreams Church.

But I guess the party didn’t do much vetting of this guy because Woodhouse is also a conservative Christian zealot who’s done several interviews with the far-right religious ministry ElijahFire. And in two of those interviews—on July 13, 2023 alongside his wife Mandy Woodhouse and on February 7, 2025 by himself—he said a number of batshit crazy things.

Let’s run through some of them, shall we?

There was the story about how he witnessed witches melting at a church service:

Apart from the more demonstrative versions of supernatural power of God, I’ve also seen people do crazy things with supernatural love, where they’ve hugged witches that have come into church services… Hugged them and watched them melt. And have them converted later and see them saved.

To paraphrase a comment that one reader sent me via email, this guy thinks The Wizard of Oz was a documentary. In case you’re wondering, there is no evidence of those witches melting in church. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It got far more disturbing, though, when Woodhouse spoke about gay people and insisted same-sex marriage wasn’t “real”:

… And you certainly can’t live in a place of cognitive dissonance, where you get people—I guess, as people like Michael Knowles or Ben Shapiro would say—like, force people to reinforce your delusion. You know, where you force people to live in a cognitive dissonance where they don’t agree with what they’re saying… You know, a simple version of that would be pronouns. But just at all.

Like, there’s this whole reality pretending that same-sex marriage is real. Like, it’s not. It’s not. And it ignores, you know, decades of the reality of observations of the dynamics between a man and a woman…

Same-sex marriage has been legal in Australia since 2017 and enjoys more support there than in the U.S.

That whole interview was actually focused on the subject of abortion, and Woodhouse said he opposed it in all cases, including situations involving rape and incest—putting him well on the fringes of public opinion.

In the other interview, he said even more about homosexuality, claiming that accepting it opened up “demonic realms.” Feminism, he added, was also “demonic.”

I’ll tell you where it—hang on, I’m just going to read from my notes. I felt the Lord say read it.

Who knows what—when you forsake pillars of truth, right, and then you lose understanding, you lose sound wisdom, you lose counsel, you lose… wisdom—who knows what demonic realms we’ve opened up to the world, to ourself, on the Earth, when you forsake it, by accepting homosexuality, transgender, abortion. Shaming men?!

[MANDY WOODHOUSE: Yeah…]

What the heck? You know Paul said “Man is the glory of God and woman is the glory of man”? You’ve detached yourself from any revelation from that verse if you swallow these lies about shaming men.

There’s no such thing as, um, toxic masculinity… There’s no such thing as toxic masculinity. There’s toxic behavior… There’s no such thing as toxic masculinity. Man is the glory of God and the way he was created.

I’ll tell you what, feminism is demonic.

[MANDY WOODHOUSE: Yeah…]

Putting value on women is not demonic, but feminism’s demonic.

That kind of religious extremism feels downright mild when considering the Republican Party these days, but it’s still considered extreme in large swaths of Australia.

That’s why, on Wednesday, Blair Boyer held a press conference during which he showed the media those clips, forcing the Liberty Party to answer for their religious nutcase of a candidate. Boyer strategically and wisely argued that Woodhouse’s comments proved that the party was either no longer vetting its candidates or they fully agreed with what he said:

Labor spokesman Blair Boyer slammed the views as extreme.

“These aren’t mild views, come on, this is ‘feminism is demonic’, ‘homosexuality is demonic’, ‘I’ve seen witches melt’, ‘it’s a spiritual war’,” he said.

“Either this is the views of the Liberal party now - it’s either that or they didn’t vet him.”

When the head of the Liberal Party, Ashton Hurn, was asked about Woodhouse’s comments, she initially acted like it was no big deal. She didn’t personally agree with them, she insisted, but people are allowed to believe what they want.

But that also led to a number of awful headlines because she refused to condemn his indefensible comments.

"They're not something that sits well with me," Ms Hurn said.

“Carston’s put those views out there, I don’t share them, but we’re just focused on working together, across the political 47 seats, to make sure we’re presenting South Australia about our positive plan.”

“It’ll be up to the voters to reflect on people’s individual views, that’ll be a matter for the voters.”

Ms Hurn said across political parties, there are often differing views on topics.

“He’s allowed to have his views,” the Liberal leader said.

“I’m not going to stop someone from having an opinion.”

She also said he would remain their party’s candidate in Wright… which she pretty much had to given that the election is on March 21. She did not say, however, whether she had any intention of campaigning with him.

It turns out their mishandling of All The Things has now backfired spectacularly.

A day after the controversy hit its peak, Hurn announced that Woodhouse would no longer be running for public office. His page on their website has already been deleted. The party is effectively giving up on that race entirely.

Hurn refused to say whether Woodhouse resigned or whether the party forced him to step down (before he dragged everyone else down with him), but it should be noted that he still works for the party apparatus:

Ms Hurn said she wouldn’t be going into details on whether Mr Woodhouse was disendorsed or he resigned.

“Now I’m telling you, that he’s no longer the candidate,” she said.

The Liberal leader confirmed Mr Woodhouse still had a contract to work at Liberal Party headquarters.

“He’s still got a contract, and that contract will continue,” Ms Hurn said.

Probably not smart for the party to keep him on the payroll given how much of a moral monster he is. But that’s the Liberal Party for you. Boyer, by the way, jumped on that one:

"If that was someone in the Labor party campaign team, they would be out on their ear," Mr Boyer replied.

Think about what this all means: Hurn’s first instinct was to tolerate Woodhouse’s bigotry until it became politically inconvenient. Why would anyone trust a party that embraces that sort of failure of moral judgment? The fact that they’re not firing him still sends the unmistakable message that the problem was never his beliefs, only the bad press they generated before an election.

I gotta say: I’m jealous. It’s good to see a political party thoroughly shamed for endorsing a man with such despicable views regardless of the fact that they stem from his Christian faith. Religion isn’t a virtue and it’s long past time we allow someone to use the shield of faith as cover for his outright bigotry and cruelty.

This is how politics should work. People whose views are completely outside the mainstream shouldn’t be viable in any election, and when a party hides those views from the voters, they should be shamed and punished for it. It’s wonderful that Woodhouse wasn’t rewarded for extremism, like he would be in the U.S. He was exposed, challenged, and ultimately cast aside.

Voters were given the information they needed. Journalists amplified it. Opponents seized the moment. Public pressure forced accountability. That’s how democratic norms are supposed to function.

When faith-based bigotry is seen as a political liability, your society is doing something right. (Meanwhile, in America, Republican Party leaders won’t even pretend to care about their own members’ blatant anti-Islamic hatred.)

Interestingly enough, with the election so close, Woodhouse’s name will still appear on the ballot since they’ve already been printed. But if he gets elected, without the Liberal Party’s endorsement, he’ll have to serve as an independent, a move that would deprive him of any of the benefits that come with being part of a larger organization.

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