Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa said Tuesday that same sex marriage should be prohibited because the government had the right to regulate human behavior.

“The state’s require a marriage license,” King said. “A license is by definition a permit to do that which is otherwise illegal. Licenses are used to direct and regulate human behavior — a license to drive, a license to fish, a license to hunt, a license to cut hair, a license to do brain surgery, or a license to join the bar, or actually own a bar. And this is all a proper thing for our state to do because they are regulating and promoting certain kinds of activity and behavior.

“That’s why there is a marriage license,” he continued. “You have to meet the qualifications in the same fashion as all of the other licenses I have mentioned. Marriage is promoted by the states because that is the best way that we know how to promote the best of our culture and civilization into the next generation.”

Same sex couples should be excluded from this institution, according to King, because marriage is about “natural procreation” and children “need a mom and a dad.”