Posted on 04/11/2013 6:26:45 AM PDT by IbJensen
LONDON, U.K., April 10, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons told HuffPost Live last week that he worries a redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples could lead to abuses of the institution, including marriages between fathers and their sons.
“It seems to me that now [gay activsts are] fighting for the name,” Irons told HuffPo Live host Josh Zepps. “I worry that it means somehow we debase, or we change, what marriage is. I just worry about that.”
Zepps asked Irons about his views on gay ‘marriage’ during an interview about the Showtime series “The Borgias,” in which Irons plays the role of a pope. While Irons said he had no strong feelings either way on the issue, he did worry that unscrupulous people could use a redefinition of marriage to their advantage at society’s expense.
“Tax wise, it’s an interesting one, because, you see, could a father not marry his son?” Irons asked Zepps.
When Zepps countered that laws against incest should prevent such unions, Irons disagreed.
Click "like" if you support true marriage.
“It's not incest between men,” he said. “Incest is there to protect us from having inbreeding. But men don’t breed … so incest wouldn't cover that. But if that was so, if I wanted to pass on my estate without estate duties, I could marry my son and pass on my estate to him.”
After Irons’ comments were widely circulated online and mocked by liberal commentators, the actor posted an open letter on his official website addressing the interview. He denied criticism that he is “anti-gay,” saying instead he simply wanted to have an honest discussion about the potential unintended consequences of a redefinition of marriage.
“I was taking part in a short discussion around the practical meaning of Marriage, and how that institution might be altered by it becoming available to same-sex partners,” Irons wrote. “Perhaps rather too flippantly I flew the kite of an example of the legal quagmire that might occur if same sex marriage entered the statute books, by raising the possibility of future marriage between same sex family members for tax reasons, (incest being illegal primarily in order to prevent inbreeding, and therefore an irrelevance in non-reproductive relationships).”
He admitted his example was “mischievous,” but said it was “nonetheless valid.”
Same-sex “marriage” is a hot issue in both the U.K., where Irons resides, and in the U.S., where HuffPo Live is based. In the U.K., parliament is debating a bill recently passed by the House of Commons that would officially redefine marriage to include homosexual couples. In the U.S., the Supreme Court is debating whether to strike down a federal ban on same-sex ‘marriage,’ thereby legitimizing the unions of homosexual couples who have ‘married’ in the nine states where it is legal and allowing them to receive federal benefits based on marital status. More than 1,100 U.S. benefits depend on marital status, including estate taxes, Social Security survivor benefits and health benefits for federal employees.
Go against God's Word and everything goes to hell!
Interesting thought. Would that be legal in SS marriage states like Maryland and NY?
Probably. Eventually a male or female ‘human’ will be able to marry a goat or a turtle.
I’m all for it. LOL. The irony is too rich. Obama lowers the estate tax threshold to $3 million NOT indexed for inflation...USSC kills DOMA....voila...liberals, no more estate taxes.
Before we get too excited, there are incest laws. Perhaps that is the next court challenge.
And why not?
Homosexuals are not legally barred from marriage (in most places, anyway) as long as they marry a member of the opposite sex.
There would appear to be no logical or juristic reason that heterosexuals could not enter into a same-sex “marriage” if such were legal.
More unintended consequences of liberal social engineering.
Anything that reduces the amount of money the government strips from citizens and the economy gives the people the last laugh.
I hereby define Nixon’s Law: For every taxtion, there is an equal and opposite reaction (loophole).
Nope.
The position of those pushing for homosexual "marriage" is that any two people who love each other should be allowed to marry.
I love my mother, my mother loves me.
How dare the state stand between us!!!
</Oedipan rant>
There are already potential loopholes.
For example, two wealthy old men with roughly equal assets could agree to marry each other’s granddaughters.
GLBTXYZ....it’s getting hard to keep up with modern society.
You are absolutely right.
The gay marriage “debate” is not only insane and irrational — Not REASONED—as all Just Laws have to be-—but it erases all standards of Right and Wrong— so that every arbitrary law can be “right”.
The reason the Leftist/pagans/atheists/Satanists want this-—is it will destroy Judeo-Christian Ethics. Totally removes them from the minds of the next generation. Lenin did the same thing-—forced babies into Day Care so their worldview would be the State’s indoctrination and mothers would be meaningless in the transfer of “worldview” so it was easy to “erase” God in one generation.
Thousands of years of societal norms and moral behavior down the tubes.
It’s amazing how on the surface they say it is about love, but it really is just about money and benefits.
Wait until the backlash starts, Jeremy
Wasn’t the whole point of “civil unions” to protect benefits and assets? Now, of course, they are asking for more and more “rights” - even if it turns the whole country upside down.
It is all about power and prestige.
Unnatural in that it goes against the law of biology, or even simply logic. Lincoln once said this about definition. “How many dogs have? Four. Just because you call a a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”
And the sad thing is, after reading his responses, they seem rational and measured. He's actually thought about the negative consequences, and has (seemingly) politely expressed his opinion.
It is undoubtedly not a popular Hollywood opinion however; whether or not he's successful enough not to care, or whether he doesn't need the work, remains to be seen.
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