Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum on Thursday attributed the criticism of his socially conservative political beliefs to journalists and others living in New York.

“The idea that values issues are losers is held by a group of people in the media who live in the New York area,” he said in an interview with American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer. “Because they don’t know anybody or very few people who share those values, so they just assume the rest of the country is like them.”

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“So they just naturally recoil at someone who dares to talk about these things or actually publicly talks about his faith and what his faith and convictions are. It makes them uncomfortable.”

Santorum also said the media tried to portray him as someone who wanted to impose his beliefs on the nation.

“This is the kind of narrative they’re trying to sell.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the American Family Association as a hate group because of its “demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.”

Watch video, courtesy of Right Wing Watch, below: