Tony Perkins (Getty)

The head of the anti-gay Family Research Council has delivered a speech at the Republican Leadership Conference.

The group’s president Tony Perkins, who believes that religious freedom only applies to Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, compares gay people to drug addicts, and threatened a “revolution” over same-sex marriage, addressed the Republican conference in Louisiana last week.

In his speech, he claimed that a “new McCarthyism” was persecuting anyone who wants to “preserve marriage”.

He said: This McCarthyism would force every corporate leader, university official, public contractor, or media figure to answer a question: Are you now or have you ever been involved in an effort to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman?” No, I’ll go further than that: this New McCarthyism demands, ‘Do you now think or have you ever thought that marriage should remain the union of a man and a woman?’

“Answer incorrectly, and watch your career be taken from you and your reputation smeared on

a thousand web sites.”

He also defended Brendan Eich, the former Mozilla CEO who stood down following three resignations from his board, after it emerged he had donated to anti-gay marriage groups and refused to rule out donating more.