Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has suggested gay marriage is to blame for America's economic woes.

In a radio interview on Catholic Radio San Diego to pitch his book A Nation Like No Other, his short film Nine Days that Changed the World, and his wife Callista Gingrich's upcoming children's book Sweet Land of Liberty, host Charles Limandri asked Gingrich why he believed “radical secularists” are attacking the family.

“The concept of family being between man and woman and the concept of all these core values that grow out of 3,000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition,” Gingrich answered. “This is a direct threat to the entire secular world.”

“We're becoming increasingly secular, the family is under attack and economically we're experiencing woes like we've never known in our history it seems. So what is the connection here?” Limandri asked.

“You have to recognize that free enterprise is based on free people and … free people are based on faith,” Gingrich replied. “The very basis of our belief and freedom is that we believe we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. The very source of our strength is that we believe these are truths – not theories, not ideologies, not gimmicks, not political consultants, powerpoints – truths, and so there's a core absolute overlap between free enterprise, freedom and freedom of faith. And if you don't have freedom of faith in the end you're not going to have free enterprise because there's no moral force that defends and protects you.” (The audio is embedded in the right panel of this page.)