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.
I agree that marital status should not be a criteria for wealth transfer.
Come up with a better tax law, but leave the family alone.
I thought that living trusts solved problems like this from happening. If I create a trust that owns all of my assets, I name who gets said assets upon my death, no questions asked. Am I missing something?
First states should remove restrictions like marrying to cousins or incest etc. from marriage certificate requirement.
I’m marring my cat...not...: )
I agree. How many dogs have, versus how many dogs have not.
I’ve made this very same argument with my more liberal friends and they also toss up the “incest” canard. Frankly, I hope to see this “loophole” exploited everywhere homo-”marriage” is legal.
Gee. That reminds me of the old joke about the Bill Clinton and another guy discussing their sex lives.
Clinton said that he had sex with a woman, a dog, a horse, a sheep, a cat and a chicken.
“A chicken? How did you accomplish that?”
I’ll withhold the punch line because you probably remember the joke and this is sort of a family-oriented website.
Roll everything back to 1912. No IRS no tons of regulations.
A trust is a device to transfer assets in order to avoid PROBATE. Similar to having a designated beneficiary to your IRA. It is not a device to avoid or reduce ESTATE TAXES assuming your estate is greater than $5.25 million.
A lawyer called in to the Howie Carr show to make that exact point. He said that Massachusetts law prohibitions on consanguinity only specify Father-daughter, Mother-son (as well as sister-brother), and have not been amended. He actually advised clients that they should not overlook the possibility of such marriages as a way to shelter inheritances, though he didn’t necessarily recommend them.
Estate taxes violate Constitutional private property rights . . . IMHO . . . and when income tax rates reach a point, they do, too.
I've got news for Jeremy Irons. Marriage is being debased and changed when this liberal government allows and sanctifies homosexual relationships as marriage.
Everybody assumes incorrectly that marriage between close relatives and sexual relations between close relatives are the same thing. They are two seperate issues. Two relatives who marry, hypothetically for now, may never lay a hand on each other, the purpose of the marriage was for estate planning only.
And to your goals I would add social/societal domination.
Lincoln had Common Sense......he didn’t go to public school indoctrination centers-—he was self-educated-—not “mass conditioned” by Billy Ayers sick curricula.
There is no Reason is “homosexual” marriage-—Just Laws HAVE to be “Reasoned”.
This is what Ayn Rand was complaining about in the 60’s-—that Marxism is irrational -—socialism is irrational and not “reasoned”.
We need to restore-—as Cicero stated: “Right Reason according to Nature” which determines “Justice”-—put it BACK into US Laws.
Irrational “thinking” (Marxism) was inserted into our legal system by Oliver W. Holmes, jr. Progressives ruined our “Justice” system and made it a joke and now it actually mocks Justice now.
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