A couple of years ago Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons rightly came in for a lot of criticism for comments he made to Huffpo live about gay marriage, where he suggested he thought it would allow fathers to marry their sons in order to avoid inheritance tax.
It’s taken a while, but now someone has asked what his actor son, Max Irons (Red Riding Hood, The Host, The Riot Club), what he thought about what his father said.
What Jeremy said back in 2013 was, “Could a father not marry his son?”
When it was pointed out that gay marriage wouldn’t legalise incest, he answered, “It’s not incest between men”, as “incest is there to protect us from inbreeding, but men don’t breed.” This led to him worrying fathers will marry sons just for the tax breaks, although it does seem that he genuinely believed incest between a father and son isn’t illegal (which is rather worrying).
He also added, “It seems to me that now they’re fighting for the name. I worry that it means somehow we debase, or we change, what marriage is. I just worry about that.”
Max though wasn’t impressed, telling OUT that after hearing about his dad’s comments, “I remember thinking, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re thinking about a problem out loud.’ I know my father, I know his views are similar to mine. As long as you don’t harm anyone else, what you do and who you love are nobody’s business. He has since clarified as far as I understand, and truth be told, if you pushed him to explain what he was talking about, I don’t think he’d actually know.”
He also quips, “Well my father hasn’t proposed to me lately.”
Omfg. Leave them both alone. The gay community, get over yourselves and stop trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. If you plan to ask a question broiled in controversy, handle the answers. Not everybody has to come out waving the “I love gay people!” Banner. You think what he said was a “homophobic rant?” Be glad you’re not in Africa where gays are getting murdered, WHICH I do not see the gay community talking about. Yet they’re worried about what a son has to say about a comment made 2 years ago.
Excellent response! Instead of bullying and preventing free speech, why not go out and do some good in the world. All this militanism on such a superficial level, the pettiness against anyone who dares not to agree with them (so much for all the je suis banners) yet there are real problems faced by homosexuals. A baker who won’t bake you a cake is not worth the hissy fit when compared to being murdered! “Accept my views or else”, the sheer arrogance is breathtaking. Go and help the poor men being mutilated in Africa. Stop whining about cakes and b&b’s. Sheesh. I don’t get it. My lovely, lovely gay friends when we were all growing up together in the eighties were so free-minded, tolerant and laid-back. They were just – gay. They didn’t need to shout about it, piercing our eardrums. Perhaps because they didn’t have a plan to eradicate heterosexuals from the face of the earth. They just lived and let live. It’s all so militant and political now, as if there’s a sinister force behind it all. And how about the whining about The Imitation Game… just incredibly infantile. It didn’t have ANY sex scenes, not even a heterosexual peck on the lips, and it was GREAT. We wanted to learn about his genius and his contribution to the war. Attributes much overlooked because recent history (or social media-based information) concentrates too much on the superficial. People flocked to the cinema with their children, who learned such a valuable lesson in history. No one would have taken a child if there had been sex – hetero or gay – and that would have been a chance missed in teaching children about who Turing was. His personal life does NOT concern us, the public. His achievements, however, do concern us, very much. Yes, it’s also a valuable life lesson about persecution. IN THE PAST! Where it was not just gays who were persecuted! And the film did a wonderfully elegant and poignant way of showing it. We needed to see the emotions, not the gratuituous hump scene. We are not peeping Toms. We really don’t need any sex scene in films if you really think about it. When did voyeurism become so expected? How utterly sad it would have been if he had been judged and remembered by everyone as a man who just liked to fumble around with rent boys. I’m not interested in how you screw. If I so want, I can vomit at the pure image of you screwing. I also feel like vomiting at the mere thought of Cherie Blair screwing. No one on the face of this earth can dare to dictate to me what I feel, what I accept, what I agree with and what I like. I’m only interested in whether you are a valued member of society and a good person.