CEDAR RAPIDS — Speaking at an anti-abortion event in eastern Iowa Monday night, U.S. Rep. Steve King warned that legalized same-sex marriage would lead to a complete dissolution of society and religion.

“I will tell you that I first came into this political arena with the belief innocent human life was the most important thing that I could be involved in,” said King, a Kiron Republican who represents the 5th Congressional District in western Iowa. “I still believe that is the most important value. But I also recognize that if we don’t save marriage, we can’t remain pro-life.

“The values we have we pour through marriage into our children and into the next generation. Our religious values. Our values of faith. Our values. Our work ethic. Our entire culture comes through a man and a woman joined in holy matrimony, being blessed with children and pouring those values into the children and then living vicariously through them as they go off and we are blessed with grandchildren.”

King told the 50-some people in attendance at the Cedar Rapids event that “it has been thus since the beginning.”

“We don’t have to apologize to anybody for this,” he added. “They are the ones who are offending our civilization and our culture. … The state is interested in marriage. We want to promote marriage. We want to do so because of the things I said — because we pour the values of our society through that marriage, and we encourage the birth of children to [be] brought up in that holy union and that sacrament of marriage. And because the state is interested in it, we want to have generational, healthy societies that will continue to blossom out across this state and this countryside.”

For the most part King stopped short of encouraging people to defy the decision handed down by the Iowa Supreme Court on Friday that declared the state’s law banning same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.

“This decision by the [Iowa] Supreme Court puts us in a position where we can either defy the court — which I would prefer to do, but I don’t see the appetite out there to do that,” the congressman said. “If it were up to me I’d say, ‘You made this decision, so now you enforce it because you stepped outside your bounds.’ But the logical approach to this — to get something that we can do —  I think is to pass a constitutional amendment to correct the court.”

While comparing gay couples with incestuous relationships, King said that the state must act quickly to pass a marriage residency requirement.

“We have no residency requirement in Iowa law, which means that people can come from all over this country — a man and a man, a woman and a woman — it could be, I suppose, a father and a son or a mother and a daughter,” he said. “They can come to this state and get married and then go back to the state where they reside. And then what they will do — and this will be a national effort — is file suit in their own state. They will press those states to recognize Iowa’s marriage law. If that happens, in each of these courts, it puts a lot of pressure on and breaks down the defense of marriage that has been created by most of the states.

“We have a real problem here in Iowa, and we’ve become the embarrassment of the nation. But we don’t need to proliferate that embarrassment to the rest of the country. We can at least save the rest of the country from the mistake made by the Supreme Court justices here in Iowa.”

King said he has called on Gov. Chet Culver to pass a such a residency requirement before this legislative session ends, and has requested a phone conversation with Culver on the topic.

King, who continues to be rumored as an Iowa gubernatorial candidate for 2010, gave no clear answers as to his future political ambitions. He did remind those in attendance that he and Culver had “previously quarreled” over English-only legislation. King also repeated his challenge for Culver to fight to override the state supreme court decision.

Although the event, sponsored by Linn Area Pro Life United, was supposed to focus on abortion, King only touched on issues and concerns related directly to that subject. He outlined a few bills designed to restrict or limit abortion access, and voiced his strong opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act.

Even during his ending battle cry where he called for “the faithful” to take back everything from culture to journalism, King noted perceived differences between “traditional” families and “other” families.

“You are the people who are raising your children right, with good values — values of life and marriage and Constitution and faithful values to govern,” he said. “That’s what makes the difference. If we are ever to win this in our time … we need to do those things we can do that are transformational.”