The bill's passage would "be the beginning of our country sliding toward ... anarchy," he said
Tyree made the comments in a video released Wednesday by the National Organization for Marriage, which is spearheading opposition to the bill. The legislation must now clear the Republican-controlled State Senate where its fate is uncertain.
His disapproval of gay marriage is based on religious as well as secular grounds, Tyree said.
"Marriage is the only relationship that actually mirrors the relationship with God," he said. He also argued that same-sex parents are ill-equipped to raise a child of the opposite sex.
"You can't teach something that you don't have," Tyree said in the video. "So two men will never be able to teach a woman how to be a woman."
It is not justifiable to alter a long-standing institution "because a minority -- an influential minority -- has ... an agenda," he said.
In an opinion column for Yahoo News, the group's chairmanm, Maggie Gallagher, said Tyree told her he decided to speak out after his former teammate Michael Strahan declared his support for gay marriage last week.
The video appeared to take a page of out the playbook of the group's adversary, the Human Rights Campaign, which has released a steady stream of video testimonials from celebrity advocates of gay marriage in recent months. Uma Thurman, Whoopi Goldberg, Sean Avery of the New York Rangers and others have appeared in their videos.
Tyree seemed to chide notables who oppose same-sex marriage, but keep their opposition to themselves. "I am disappointed when ... not enough guys ... lift up something as honorable and near to God's heart as marriage," he said.
"We're doing God an injustice by not making his heart known to our country."
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