Rick Santorum: Same-sex marriage is to blame for single moms -- and polygamy is next

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum warned over the weekend that support for same-sex marriage was to blame for the increase in single mothers, and could lead to polygamy.

"What we need to do is reclaim what marriage is," Santorum told Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly during a radio interview. "If marriage is simply a romantic relationship between two people -- and by the way, that's what it's devolved to in the minds of a lot of Americans -- if that's all that marriage is then it's hard to make the argument that any two people, any three or four people shouldn't be able to get married."

However, the former Pennsylvania senator said that marriage should be an environment where children are raised by "their natural mother, and their natural father."

Schlafly lamented that marriage had become "socially optional, particularly in the celebration of single mothers."

"I simple say to the folks who have tried to change the marriage law to allow same-sex couples, they have taken it to the next logical step that you just talked about earlier," Santorum agreed. "We've divorced marriage from childbearing, we've divorced marriage from any meaning beyond a romantic relationship."

"We've sort of devalued marriage as a result of that," he added. "And so it's logical to say, if that's all that marriage is then anybody should be able to get married. We need to reclaim it."

Listen to the audio below from the Eagle Forum, obtained by Right Wing Watch on July 30, 2014.