In an interview Thursday, former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum floated an argument against gay marriage that’s becoming more common from those who oppose it: It is bad for the economy.

Santorum made the remarks in an interview with the conservative news outlet TownHall, while he attended the March for Marriage in Washington, D.C.

“When we continue to see a decline in marriage and a redefinition of marriage, you get less marriage,” he said. “You get families that aren’t as strong, and as a result, society generally, the economy suffers.”

Marriage, Santorum said, is not just about “a romantic relationship between two people.”

“It’s also about a unity of men and women, for the purposes of having and raising children, and giving the child their birthright, which is to be raised by their natural mother and natural father,” he continued. “When we have less of that in America … then society struggles and suffers. Economically, it suffers.”

“It’s important for us to stand up for what is best for children, what’s best for society, what’s best for the economy, and make that case,” he concluded.

Santorum’s comments follow a legal filing last month by the state of Kentucky, seeking to overturn a pro-gay marriage court ruling, in which lawyers for the state asserted that the state had an “economic interest” in banning same-sex marriage.

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