BIRMINGHAM, UK — The former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, warned an audience at an anti-gay marriage rally in Birmingham on Monday that “Britain risks becoming a totalitarian state as a result of gay marriage, and could go the way of Nazi Germany.”

“Remember that the Jews in Nazi Germany, what started it against them was when they were called names, that was the first stage towards that totalitarian state,” he said. “Why does it feel to us that our cultural homeland and identity is being plundered?”