Bank of America and Cisco Systems say they are sorry for axing Frank Turek, a vocal opponent of gay marriage.

The companies on Tuesday inaugurated the National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) Corporate Fairness Project, which asks companies not to discriminate against employees or vendors who publicly oppose gay marriage.

According to NOM, both companies say they are sorry for firing the motivational speaker.

Turek's 143-page anti-gay marriage book Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone led him to lose speaking gigs at Bank of America and Cisco Systems.

“I was Googled, I was outed, I was fired for being somebody who has a traditional marriage viewpoint,” Turek said in a five-minute video for NOM. “I am open to working with people of all sexual orientations or political views. In fact, that's what inclusion and diversity should be about.”

“If we don't start speaking up, we're going to lose our ability to even make a living in this country,” the Charlotte-based speaker added. (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)

Turek has previously warned that gay people are on a “road to destruction” and said that a gay gene would not make gay marriage OK.

Jonathan Baker, director of NOM's Corporate Fairness Project, said he had received “assurances from both companies that this kind of discriminatory treatment violates corporate policy and will not happen again.”

“We're grateful these two companies have made it clear they will not tolerate discrimination against employees or vendors based on their views on same-sex marriage. As Frank Turek said, it's simply un-American as well as unwise for anyone to say you have to share one politically correct viewpoint in order to keep your job,” Baker said.

“This is not the end, it's the beginning of NOM's campaign to make sure decent law abiding people who believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman are not treated as outcasts or racists. It is not bigotry to say that marriage is the union of a husband and wife, it's common sense; corporations need to respect the diverse views of their employees and customers,” added NOM President Brian Brown.