Responding today to Mike Huckabee’s threat to leave the GOP over Republican leaders’ muted response to gay marriage victories, Rep. Rob DeSantis reassured the former governor that the Republican Party is not giving up on its fight against gay rights.

The freshman Republican from Florida told Newsmax TV that Huckabee and other Religious Right leaders shouldn’t even think about leaving the GOP.

“Being in Congress and seeing the left wing of the Democratic Party and the elite media in action, they are hostile to conservative cultural values across the board, they are hostile to religious liberty and a lot of our traditions and I think that the Republican Party and conservative voters are really the only force against that,” he said.

“I understand where [Huckabee’s] coming from but I think there’s a whole bunch of issues in which the left is hostile to where the governor is going to be coming from and really you’ve got to have a strong opposition party to be able to stand up for those values.”