On a recent episode of Liberty Counsel’s “Faith and Freedom” radio program, Mat Staver and Matt Barber discussed the case of a Washington state florist who is facing fines for refusing to sell flowers to a same-sex couple for their wedding, which they used to warn that if the Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage this year, it will lead to widespread Christian persecution and the destruction of the Christian church in America.

Barber declared that the push for gay marriage was never about equality but rather “about forcing Christians against their will to celebrate deviant homosexual behavior.”

“This was about persecuting Christians,” he said, “not about marriage equality.”

Staver readily agreed, saying that gay marriage is “an oxymoron” because “same-sex relationships are harmful, they’re sinful, they’re contrary to the Scriptures, they’re contrary to the natural created order,” and warning that gay activists are intent on persecuting Christians all over America, which promoted Barber to issue a dire warning.

“If, God forbid … the Supreme Court somehow defines and manufactures a constitutional so-called right to sodomy-based marriage this summer, in June, if they do that then the floodgates will be open,” Barber said. “There will be Christian persecution widespread across the United States and the so-called gay marriage agenda will be the sledgehammer used to crush the church and to crush religious liberty and the crush individual Christians, their finances, to ruin them. That’s what this agenda was always about and that’s what we will see if the Supreme Court goes the wrong way in June.”

Staver closed by declaring that if the Supreme Court does rule in favor of gay marriage, then Christians must treat the ruling as illegitimate and ignore it: