Conservative and former diplomat Alan Lee Keyes has condemned a federal judge's ruling striking down Oklahoma's ban on gay marriage, arguing that the purpose of the marriage equality movement is the destruction of America.

U.S. District Judge Terence Kern put his 68-page ruling, handed down Tuesday, on hold, pending an appeal.

(Related: Federal judge strikes down Oklahoma's gay marriage ban.)

“The elitists' push to legalize, and forbid disapproval of, homosexual relations is the most telling evidence of their hostility toward America's way of life,” Keyes wrote in a WND.com op-ed.

“The latest case in point is the ruling of U.S. District Judge Terrence C. Kern regarding same-sex marriage, overturning the amendment by which Oklahomans restricted the State's recognition of marriage to heterosexual couples. Though the decision contained nothing new, both its content and the manner in which it was argued by both sides illustrate the deadly legal chicanery by which the elitist faction means to dissolve the moral, legal and institutional basis for just government, i.e., government aimed at securing the God-endowed unalienable rights of the people.”

“By contrast the judges and justices deny and disparage authoritatively antecedent unalienable rights retained by the people (e.g., the heterosexual couple's exclusive prerogative of procreation, which gives rise to the institution of marriage and its attendant rights). They seek to establish an unconstitutional regime of constraint upon one of the powers of government constitutionally reserved to the states, respectively, or the people (i.e., the power to make laws 'respecting an establishment of religion'). The will to resist such abuses called the American people into existence as a nation. If today that will has failed, its failure will be the headstone that marks our nation's demise.”

“Be advised, this tragic conclusion is the purpose of the whole 'gay marriage' maneuver,” he added.