Controversial lesbian feminist Tammy Bruce, who believes children are being seduced into "warped" gay behaviour and a gay conspiracy to spread AIDS to the "mainstream", has been imported from the United States for a series of talks and media engagements in New Zealand. The names involved read like a who's who of anti-gay social conservatism over the last few years. Bruce's visit has been partially sponsored by businessman John Sax, who engineered the infamous anti-civil union letter to MPs last year. Bruce is scheduled to appear at a public meeting in Hamilton this evening along with Alan Duff, another signatory of that letter. Tauranga evangelist and Herald columnist Sandra Paterson praised the entry of Bruce into the country this Saturday, describing her as the lesbian version of John Tamihere. She said a "concerned grandmother" had organised for Bruce's visit, although the Herald reveals this to be untrue this morning – former Hamilton ACT candidate Joanne Reeder is responsible. Paterson denied any Maxim Institute involvement in Bruce's visit, although Maxim have been promoting it. The Christian media circuit has embraced Bruce with open arms, with appearances on Radio Rhema and the Shine TV channel, but she's also showing out on arch-conservative Newstalk ZB host Leighton Smith's programme, and Larry Williams' Sky News TV show. TV One's Close Up will interview her tonight. Bruce told the Herald she personally supports civil unions, but she has some disturbing ideas about AIDS and the GLBT communities which put her firmly in line with the religious right, including her theory about the gay conspiracy to spread AIDS to the "mainstream", as outlined in fundamentalist Christian Ian Wishart's Investigate magazine last April: "You work to have AIDS become normal and inevitable by leading a life that spreads the contagion, thus forcing society to assimilate with you." Wishart's Eternity Books website also sells her book The Death of Right and Wrong, published by Random House last year. It outlines her concerns that children are being “seduced into warped sexual behavior by the Gay Elite” and that promiscuous gay men are being “empowered to spread AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases". "...the Gay Elite exploit our children—under the guise of tolerance and education—to satisfy their sexual obsessions," reads the dust jacket.