Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith was once again defending her party Sunday, after her opponent responded with shock to one of her candidate's viewpoints on homosexuality, made public in a blog post last year.
Progressive Conservative Party Leader Alison Redford was in Calgary Sunday, and was asked about a blog posting, published by Wildrose Candidate for Edmonton – South West Allan Hunsperger and his wife, Cindy, in June, 2011.
The posting, which has since been removed from the website, entitled ‘Born this Way', states homosexuals "will suffer the rest of eternity in the lake of fire, hell, a place of eternal suffering."
"If we have people like this, making these sorts of comments in Alberta, I think it's absolutely wrong," Redford said when asked about the post Sunday.
"The fact that these people think that's a legitimate perspective just absolutely blows my mind."
"We recognize that people have a great diversity of viewpoints," Smith said Sunday. "It's not unique to our party.
"The PC, Liberals and the NDP all have people with strong religious views."
Smith, also in Calgary Sunday, brought up PC candidates with strong religious views.
"I suppose if you're going to ask about that, you can ask about Ted Morton, David Dorward, and Tony Vandermeer," Smith continued. "Every single political party has people with strong religious views.
"As long as they keep that in their personal lives, and don't anticipate that there's going to be legislation on that, I don't believe we're doing anything different than other political parties."
On Sunday, Hunsperger, who did not speak to the media, released a statement:
"Recently, a blog posting I had written in the past has been widely circulated and has caused some controversy regarding my personal religious views.
The views I expressed in this blog posting are my own personal religious views and were given in the capacity as a church pastor.
I fully support equality for all people, and condemn any intolerance based on sexual orientation or any other personal characteristic.
I also entirely support Danielle Smith in her commitment that a Wildrose government will not legislate on contentious social issues."