Evangelical Ousted for Supporting Same-Sex Marriage Reflects On Faith and the Future

For 10 years, the Rev. Richard Cizik was the chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents roughly 30 million constituents across the United States.

But he was forced out of that position in December 2008, after remarks he made on Fresh Air about his support of gay civil unions, among other things.

On Wednesday, Cizik returns to Fresh Air to discuss how his life has changed since he left the association and why he started a new group called the Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, which he hopes will be an alternative to Christian groups that focus on the culture wars.

Cizik says he has no regrets about what happened to him after appearing on the show.

"In so many ways, this has been good for me," he tells Terry Gross, adding that his support of same-sex civil unions wasn't the only reason he was asked to leave the NAE.

"It was a sum total of everything [I said on Fresh Air]," Cizik explains. "It was speaking out on behalf of creation care, climate change, a broader agenda -- speaking out on a host of levels that just offended the old guard. Civil unions, well that was just one part of it."

Cizik says that he still strongly believes that same-sex couples should be allowed to obtain civil unions.

"While I haven't come to a conclusion on [gay marriage,] I am convinced that you can't deny rights to people based on their sexual orientation. It's wrong," he says. "It's even wrong, I think, as Christians to take that position. Because we should support human rights for all people even when they don't agree with us."

He also explains how he believes the evangelical movement has changed in the past several decades -- and why he believes the evangelical movement is overdue for another ideological shift.

"Most important, [we need to become] independent of partisanship and ideology rather than subservient to partisanship and ideology," he says. "Evangelicalism [has] become so subservient to an ideology and to a political party that it needs, as I say, to be born again."