Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Monday hired noted LGBTQ rights opponent Eric Teetsel to direct his campaign’s faith outreach. Teetsel has suggested that LGBTQ equality has led to a time of “great pain and darkness” that could cause the destruction of society.

The former executive director of the Manhattan Declaration, which is both an evangelical Christian manifesto signed by 550,000 people and an organization that proclaims to be a “movement of Christians for life, marriage, and religious freedom,” Rubio’s latest hire shows an attempt by the candidate to tap into the evangelical voting bloc that stands to play a pivotal role in the 2016 GOP primary.

Teetsel, as the Huffington Post reported, lamented the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in favor of marriage equality, writing on the religious blog First Things that “a significant cultural impediment has been removed, and so sin will spread. This is regrettable because sin, of course, leads to suffering. As our LGBT neighbors continue to experience the ravages of their sin, will anyone be there to explain to them its cause?”

Speaking on a panel this year hosted by the Family Research Council (FRC), an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, Teetsel claimed that legal advancements in LGBTQ equality make it “very hard to live out Christian principles in the public square.”

Suggesting the world was headed in a bad direction, Teetsel said that these advancements may eventually lead to society’s destruction.

“My understanding of some of the great awakenings, particularly the second, is that they were born out of periods of time of great pain and darkness. Sure feels like the kind of time we’re in right now,” said Teetsel. “Maybe, instead, we’re one of those societies that has turned their backs on God and he’s going to allow them to have everything they want and that’s going to destroy them.”

Teetsel is also vocally anti-choice, frequently blogging and tweeting about his opposition to abortion rights, which he calls “the ultimate assault on the dignity of human life.”

Commenting on the controversy surrounding the highly edited and widely discredited videos released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), an anti-choice front group, Teetsel falsely asserted that there was “evidence of the systematic, methodical execution of unborn children by Planned Parenthood affiliates in order to salvage the desirable body parts for sale to firms for scientific testing.”