Newt Gingrich on Wednesday described gay marriage as a pagan behavior, media watchdog RightWingWatch.org reported.

The 68-year-old Gingrich was the winner of last Saturday's South Carolina primary. However, polls put Mitt Romney in front of Gingrich in Florida's contest, which takes place on Tuesday.

Gingrich made his comments during a conference call Wednesday organized by several Christian conservatives who are supporting Gingrich's candidacy, including Don Wildmon, chairman emeritus of the AFA, Jim Garlow, head of the Skyline Wesleyan Church, and Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.

Garlow said that the United States “as we know her will cease to exits as will, then, Western Civilization” if Obama is reelected president.

Gingrich reiterated his opposition to marriage equality, calling the effort to legalize it a “violation of our civilization.”

“It's pretty simple: marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a historic doctrine driven deep into the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and it's a perfect example of what I mean by the rise of paganism. The effort to create alternatives to marriage between a man and a woman are perfectly natural pagan behaviors, but they are a fundamental violation of our civilization.” (The audio is embedded in the right panel of this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)