Tea Party guest walks off Piers Morgan show after he asks about gay marriage

"Right now I'm curious about whether you support gay marriage," he asked Christine, who was on the show how to promote her new book "Troublemaker".

"You're borderline being a little bit rude," said O'Donnell. "I obviously want to talk about the issues that I choose to talk about in the book."

The interview continued with Morgan asking her if she addressed gay marriage in her new book. She said she did - but refused to address the question on CNN.

"Do you answer that question in the book?" he asked.

"I talk about my religious beliefs, yeah," O'Donnell said, nodding .

"Do you talk about gay marriage in the book?" he probed further.

"What relevance is that right now?" O'Donnell replied. "Is there a piece of legislation?"

Rather than being "a little rude," said Morgan, "I think I'm being rather charming and respectful.

"I'm just asking you questions based on your own public statements and now, what you've written in your own book. It's hardly rude to ask you that, surely?"

"Well, don't you think, as a host, if I say, 'This is what I want to talk about,' that's what we should address," she asked.

"Not really, no," he said.

At that point, O'Donnell looked off camera and said, "OK, I'm being pulled away," adding that she "turned down another interview for this."

"I was supposed to be speaking at the Republican Women's Club at 6 o'clock and I chose to be a little late for that, not to be... not to endure rude talk show hosts, but to talk to you about my book and the issues I address in my book," she said. "Have you read the book?"

Morgan said he had. She DID bring up gay marriage in her book.

"It would appear that the interview has just been ended, because I had the audacity to ask questions based on stuff that's in this book," Morgan said as O'Donnell left the studio. "It's a good book, it's called 'Troublemaker.' I think we now know why it's called 'Troublemaker.'...

Morgan later tweeted "Do you think Christine O'Donnell is going to put a witch's curse on me now?" a reference to her 2010 admission that she "dabbled" in witchcraft.

UPDATE: Piers later invited Christine back on his show to discuss the walk-off. She replied on Twitter,“Piers, thanks for the invite. Schedule is already packed, maybe another night. No hard feelings, you cheeky bugger.”

She said later she’d answered the gay marriage question repeatedly, taking the same position “as Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and Michele Bachmann. "I believe that religion should define marriage.” One viewer commented, “I wish she would just answer the question on gay marriage without couching her answer in a position taken by others." My own take: I think we can assume that O'Donnell, a leading light in the Tea Party movement doesn't favour gay marriage.