NEW Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has been forced to defend her husband's sexuality against a campaign orchestrated by a secretive fundamentalist Christian sect with a track record of targeting the Left in Australia.
Ms Clark described yesterday as "vile, baseless lies" allegations of homosexuality against her husband of 25 years, academic Peter Davis, and accused the Exclusive Brethren of hiring private investigators to follow her family. She took aim at the National Party, whose leader Don Brash was reported last week to be having an affair with a millionaire businesswoman. She accused its supporters and right-wing commentators of creating a "poisonous" political environment where "bile" thrived.
Ms Clark said her husband was "extremely upset" by the campaign against him. She also hit out at the media, which had "shown no scruples with running this sort of base slander".
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