9.20PM: The fortunes of anti-glbt candidates are so far rather a mixed bag, with some polling poorly in tonight's election, a few doing rather better and a high-profile candidate comfortably on track to take his electorate.

National’s Jonathan Young, a former Church Minister who says homosexuality is a choice and who strongly objects to it being seen as a "normal alternative" has a slight lead in New Plymouth, by almost 1,000 votes, with just over a quarter of the vote counted.

Stephen Franks, who was a thorn in the flesh of the campaign for Civil Unions is cirrently losing to gay candidate Grant Robertson by a very slim margin in Wellington Central, with 20% of the vote counted.

The conservative Christian-based Family Party, headed by former Destiny Church party leader Richard Lewis, who led Destiny to a brutal defeat at the last election, is getting just 0.27% of the total party vote so far. Even the joke Bill & Ben Party has more, on 0.36%. Lewis has only 45 candidate votes in his Manurewa electorate, compared to Labour's George Hawkins lead of over 1,300 votes with 15% of the polling stations counted.

Taito Philip Field, the ex-Labour MP currently under investigation for fraud who has been courting the heavily conservative Christian Polynesian vote in South Auckland is also stumbling. With 10% of the Mangere vote counted Field has only half the votes Labour’s Su’a Sio has secured.

Winston Peters, who recently adopted the parliamentary tactic of throwing homophobic slurs at straight ACT leader Rodney Hide, is losing Tauranga with with a third of the votes National’s Simon Bridges has attracted, with 13% of polling places counted in that electorate. NZ First is polling barely enough to make Parliament without a Peters electorate win, and may indeed fail to do so.

Bill English, the deputy leader of National and former education minister, who allowed his teenage son to continue posting homophobic hate speech on the internet last year, has a commanding lead of almost 6,000 votes in Clutha-Southland with almost half of the vote has been counted.

English's boss, National leader John Key, who has made positive overtures to the glbt community in the past but who voted against Civil Unions and dismissed English's son's internet postings as merely 'a bit rugged,' is well ahead of any other Helensville electorate candidate.

On the party vote the National party is polling ahead of second place getter Labour. National has 46% of the vote and should get 59 seats, whereas Labour has 33% of the vote and should get 33 seats. Third-placed Greens are steady on 6%, giving them 8 seats, an increase of one over the last Parliament. This is after 70% of polling place results are in.