Christian conservative Rick Scarborough has pledged to “burn” rather than give up his opposition to marriage equality.

Appearing on the National Emergency Coalition conference call hosted by E.W. Jackson, a pastor and the 2013 Republican ticket's nominee for lieutenant governor of Virginia, Scarborough, a former Southern Baptist pastor from Pearland, Texas who now heads Vision America, called on opponents of same-sex marriage to stand strong on the issue, even if it means death: “We are not going to bow. We are not going to bend. And if necessary, we will burn.”

“The preachers need to get out front. The leaders need to get out front. Out front of these ordinary citizens and say, 'Shoot me first,'” Scarborough said, a reference to business owners such as florists and bakers who claim that their religious faith won't allow them to serve gay and lesbian couples.

Marriage equality activists are “after God,” he said, and called marriage equality a Satanic plot.

“The end game is the complete destruction of the church of the Lord Jesus. The replacement of it with this liberal theology that's not a theology, it's a philosophy, human made. It goes back to the Garden of Eden when Satan wanted to be God. We now have a race of humans that don't want to acknowledge that there's a God,” he said.