That is quite a stretch and doesn't it change the entire meaning?

No. The gate was known to be very narrow and hard for a camel to fit through. It was hard, not impossible

Sounds like some half-baked bullshit that the Christian right have come up with to try and deny the blatant hypocrisy over Jesus's teachings and their way of life. First of all, the quote says 'a needle', not 'the needle', which suggests this is an actual needle we are talking about. Secondly, assuming you are correct and we aren't talking about an actual needle, the message is still pretty much the same: hoarding wealth is inconsistent with a christian way of life and you will struggle to enter heaven if you die wealthy. Thirdly, there are myriads of other quotes from Jesus which suggest he wasn't the biggest fan of those who hoarded wealth and material possessions and looked down on the poor. The bibles conflicting messages can be debated all day long, but Jesus himself was most certainly a hippie socialist. Just makes me laugh when the Christian right almost always fail to recognise the irony of mocking socialism.