Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Friday blamed his staggering Democratic primary loss to state Sen. David Ige on his decision last year to call a special session of the state Legislature to approve marriage equality.

The governor said evangelicals who have supported him politically on other issues and Republican crossover voters motivated by gay marriage cost him the primary.

"I had to take the responsibility for that, and did," Abercrombie said of the special session, "and it played a major role in my loss in terms of where the votes were."

Abercrombie made the comments as part of a seminar for national and foreign correspondents and editors sponsored by the East-West Center. The topic of the seminar was bridging gaps between the United States and the Muslim world.

Abercrombie explained that he raised more campaign money than Ige but could not overcome other factors, which he said had to do with religion.

Abercrombie claimed that Republicans crossed over "en masse" to vote in the Democratic primary. While just 15 percent of voters cast ballots for Republicans in the primary, that share was typical for recent elections.

The governor also said evangelicals who have backed him on some policy issues voted for Ige "because they were admonished to do that by their religious leaders."

Abercrombie said he had reached out to evangelicals to find common ground, "but doctrinally I was outside the circle and paid for it. From my point of view, that’s a price I’d gladly pay.

"I’m a Democrat. I’m a Democrat through and through. And I believe in equality and opportunity and justice and if that is something that cannot be accepted in a given instance, and it cost me politically — things like that have cost me before — so this time it cost me the primary election."

An audio recording of Abercrombie’s remarks was provided to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser by his campaign.

Ige said he did not hear a lot of talk about marriage equality from voters as he was campaigning across the state.

The state senator voted for the marriage equality law but has since questioned whether the issue needed to be decided in a special session. "I didn’t get the sense that it was a burning issue in the Democratic primary," he said.

Former Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona, a Republican candidate for governor, and former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, a Hawaii Independent Party candidate, both oppose gay marriage and would have placed the issue before voters to decide through a constitutional amendment.

But both Aiona and Hannemann have said they would not attempt to repeal the law if elected governor.

Several religious conservatives running as Republicans for state House and Senate have said they were motivated to run by the special session on marriage equality. But many of these candidates have directed their criticism at the process and the lack of a vote by the people and have not sought to re-open the debate on gay marriage.