After interviewing Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of an Oregon bakery who are is facing fines for discriminating against a gay couple seeking a wedding cake, on his radio program this morning, Glenn Beck predicted if the Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage nationwide, the government will start seizing church property and the persecution of Christians will become so intense that church attendance will drop by 50 percent in the next five years “because the stigma of going to church will be too much.”

“Mark my words,” Beck said, “if gay marriage goes through the Supreme Court and gay marriage becomes fine and they can put teeth in it so now they can go after churches, like the president’s lawyer says, 50 percent of our churches will fall away. Meaning, within five years, 50 percent of the congregants will fall away from their church because they won’t be able to take the persecution.”

“Mark my words,” he continued, “within five years, 50 percent of the people that you sit next to in church will not be there. And not because [they’ll say,] ‘you know what, I think [gay marriage] fine,’ [but] because they’ll say, ‘I can’t do that, I’ll lose my job, people are picketing my house, I just can’t do that'”: