United Future is continuing to abuse gay and lesbian New Zealanders publicly, while their support begins to grow. A Sunday Star-Times poll of 501 people saw the party's support up from 1% to 4%, a surge which the newspaper attributes to Destiny's public profile. United Future MP Marc Alexander attacked civil unions, saying in a column last week it was a move by government to “placate the 0.05% of the population who may be gay, ( an even smaller percent may demand the same rights without the same natural responsibilities as married heterosexuals)”. He went on to mention rapists in the following sentence. Leader Peter Dunne has moved to distance his party from the Destiny extremists, despite having MPs like Alexander and Paul Adams (who lobbied Parliament in 1993 for AIDS patients to be quarantined) in his own ranks. Dunne says the poll rise is likely due to a "thank God we're not Destiny" element, rather than United Future voters identifying the two parties as similar. “We have no wish to be involved with them in any shape or form,” he said. New Zealand came close to having its first Destiny Church-going MP in 2002 when United Future MP Kelly Chal, number 5 on the United Future list, was elected. A problem with her eligibility as an MP saw her chucked out in favour of the number 9 MP, Paul Adams.