Bishop Tamaki Blaming the Earthquake on Gays Prompts Thousands to Petition Parliament

Vocal Trump supporter and Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki has incited a petition to demote his church from tax-free status, after he publicly blamed gays for causing the 7.8 magnitude earthquake which struck Kaikoura in the early hours of Monday morning.

Aaron Smithson launched the petition in response to Tamaki preaching the earth "convulses under certain human sin". By lunchtime Thursday already 60,000 people had joined Aaron's call for John Key and the Government "to classify Destiny Church as a hate group and strip them of their tax free status".

The Bishop has linked natural disasters to homosexuality before. Just a day before the earthquake rocked central New Zealand, Tamaki gave a sermon blaming a gay Christchurch priest for the Canterbury earthquake that killed 185 people five years ago.

John Key is yet to comment on the petition, but has told RadioLive yesterday that Tamaki's comments were "madness." "The facts of life are New Zealand is a seismically prone country, with a number of very well identified fault lines. It's nothing to do with people's sexuality." Attorney General Chris Finlayson, who is gay, described Tamaki as a "sick puppy". A strong following doesn't necessarily result in legislation. Last week Key declared the Dying with Dignity petition, which proposed a bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia and garnered thousands of signatures online as well as in-house champions, had "no chance" of becoming a government bill. Nevertheless, support for Aaron's petition is still growing, which will mean parliament has no choice but to take the request seriously.