Televangelist Pat Robertson on Monday warned viewers of The 700 Club that gay marriage will bring the wrath of God.

The 81-year-old Christian conservative made his remarks after a segment on New York becoming the sixth – and most populous – state to legalize marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

“I think we need to remember the term sodomy came from a town known as Sodom, and Sodom was destroyed by God Almighty and the thing that they practiced was homosexual activity and even they tried to rape angels who came down there, so that's the kind of people they were,” Robertson said. “But beyond that, Jesus when He spoke of Sodom He didn't say anything about the homosexuality he talked about just the fact that business was as usual until God decided to destroy it. And He sent an angel down there and He said to Lot and his family, 'get out now because I’m gonna destroy this whole area.' That's where sodomy came from, we use the term sodomy and it means Sodom. What's it like? We're heading that way as a nation. In history there's never been a civilization ever in history that has embraced homosexuality and turned away from traditional fidelity, traditional marriage, traditional child-rearing, and has survived. There isn't one single civilization that has survived that openly embraced homosexuality. So you say, 'What’s going to happen to America?' Well if history is any guide, the same thing's going to happen to us.”

Theologians, however, are not uniformly in agreement that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality. Many, if not most, explain that Sodom's sin was instead neglect of needy travelers.

“It's not a pretty world we live in right now,” Robertson added, “and we need all of God's help we can get. And I don't think we are not exactly setting ourselves up for his favor.” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)