Leader of perhaps the most extreme and outspoken anti-gay lobby group in the United States, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has implied that the legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the country by the Supreme Court would provoke acts of violence by American Christians.

Speaking to a caller on his Washington Watch radio show on Friday, Perkins said, ‘I think … your point about Christians rising up, I think we are getting close to that in this country as we see increasingly this growing hostility at the hands of our own government toward Christianity and I think especially if the court imposes upon the nation a redefinition of marriage. ‘

‘I don’t think the nation is going to accept it, I absolutely don’t, and the conflict that is going to come as a result of it.’

Later in the show Perkins called for Christians to participate in 21 days of prayer and fasting beginning the Monday after Easter in the lead up to the US Supreme Court hearing oral arguments on a series of challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage that many commentators could deliver such a definitive ruling by the court.

But after that he said it was time for Christians ‘to get up out of our prayer closet and put feet to our prayers.’

This is not the first time that Perkins has suggested that same-sex marriage being legalized across America could result in Christians turning to violent actions.

In 2012 he warned it could lead to ‘revolt, to revolution’ and ‘explode and break this nation apart.’

Perkins has previously warned that he believes same-sex marriage is part of a global conspiracy to depopulate the Earth by people who believe in global warning.