The former party of disgraced Christian political figure Graham Capill is running for cover in the wake of Capill's shock admission to and criminal conviction for repeatedly molesting an eight-year-old girl. Christian Heritage NZ has already moved to distance itself from the former leader, who stepped down from that role in 2003. In a statement, CHNZ said Capill "had not played any role within the party since stepping down from the leadership in August 2003. In fact he had resigned his membership of the party six months ago over differences with the new leadership team about the direction that the party was now taking." Former associates of Capill, now operating under the banner of the Locke Foundation, have also condemned his actions. The Foundation yesterday released a press statement listing Madeleine and Matthew Flannagan as contacts; the Flannagans were placed at 19 and 20 on Christian Heritage's party list at the last election, and Mr Flannagan was the party's justice spokesman. The Locke Foundation last week produced a 32-page report based on the political beliefs and associations of GayNZ.com contributor Jim Peron in the 1980s, alleging that he had undisclosed links to NAMBLA and promoted paedophilic literature, whilst acknowledging Peron had not been convicted of any crime. The first line of the Foundation's press statement on Capill made reference, not to Capill's actions, but to the Foundation's research on Peron. Gays shouldn't be blamed for the beliefs of Peron, therefore Christians shouldn't be blamed for the actions of Capill, the Foundation concludes. "...the deceit of Jim Peron and his past advocacy that "Gay politicians" should not "throw boylovers to the lions every chance they get ... to prevent children from being abused," were not the actions of the GLBT community. They were not the actions of GayNZ.com for whom Peron wrote or the Libertarian movement," says the statement. "Capill's actions concerning his victim were his own. They were not the actions of Christian Heritage under his leadership; they were not the actions of the Christian community as a whole; they have no bearing on the merits, or lack thereof, of Christian policy or of those policies promoted by Capill while in leadership of Christian Heritage." However, despite the distancing, political analysts are already saying that the Capill mud will stick to Christian Heritage, and possibly the Christian political movement in general. Auckland University political scientist Barry Gustafson says the fall of a high-profile figure known for preaching family values and traditional Christian-based morality would affect other religious political leaders. Victoria University political scientist Nigel Roberts concurred. "It seems to me the chances of Christian Heritage doing well in the election were very very low anyway, and this will just put another nail in the hopes of Christian Heritage. I don't know if they even had any hopes."