The Family Research Council is encouraging people to “pray and fast”, in order to thwart an expected ruling from the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage.

The US Supreme Court will next month hear arguments pertaining to same-sex marriage bans from four states, in a case that is tipped to bring equality to all 50 states.

A month before the hearings on April 28, listed anti-gay group the Family Research Council appears to be out of tangible ways to protest the move, and is encouraging people to “pray and fast”.

A circular from the group said: “FRC President Tony Perkins is asking everyone he can to set apart April 7th thru 28th, 21 days, for consecrated prayer and fasting for marriage; and for all who can to take part in the March for Marriage in Washington, April 25th. Thank you for praying!”

It continues: “As FRC has repeatedly warned for the past ten years, and as legal and government assaults against Christians in the last few years have demonstrated, religious liberty and forced same-sex “marriage” cannot coexist.

“A sweeping Supreme Court ruling like Roe v. Wade in 1973 will not bring resolution. Christians will continue to stand and defend their right to believe and practice their faith.

“When they are told to do what they cannot do in faith, they will choose to obey God, rather than man, just as Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Daniel and the apostles, and millions down through history have done.”

Mr Perkins was recently invited to testify before Congress – despite the FRC’s listing alongside the Ku Klux Klan and Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

Perkins has been repeatedly condemned by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League for comparing gay rights to the Holocaust.

Last year he warned that Christian business owners who oppose gay rights are being sent to “concentration camps”, and called for the abolition of judges who rule in favour of same-sex marriage.

He has previously warned that same-sex marriage could lead to a large-scale revolution across America.