PM “too gay”

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has been attacked in a leaflet campaign in his electorate, which calls him “too gay”.

The Conservative Party distributed 20,000 leaflets in Key’s electorate of Helensville calling for locals to show their opposition to Labour MP Louisa Wall’s gay marriage bill.

In an accompanying letter, Conservatives leader Colin Craig quotes one resident saying “Colin, you should stand here because John Key is too gay for Helensville”, Fairfax NZ reports.

Key hit back at the campaign last week.

“Give me a break,” he said to Radio Live.

“We live in a world where equality is pretty important.

“I suspect there’s an awful lot of support for what I’m doing in the electorate.”

Key supported Wall’s bill in its first reading and has said he would support the bill’s passage through Parliament.

“Some people have strong views that this is a step too far. A whole lot of other people will say ‘well, civil union, marriage’… they may see it as a fairly similar thing,” he continued.

Key also said he had been forced to marry his wife, Bronagh, outside in a garden because she is an Irish Catholic and he has a Jewish background.

“[That’s] quite different from a traditional marriage that other people might have traditionally had,” he said.