In the run-up to the marriage referendum of May 2015, The Iona Institute predicted that under the proposed redefinition of marriage two straight male (or female) friends would be permitted to marry as a way of avoiding inheritance tax. The Referendum Commission confirmed to us that this would be permitted, and now it is happening, even sooner than we thought.
Two friends, Matt and Michael plan to marry next month [1] in order to avoid inheritance tax. They announced as much on RTE’s Liveline. Neither the Gardai nor Revenue can intervene because the marriage is perfectly legitimate because consummation is no longer a requirement of marriage following the redefinition. We issued a press release about the consequences of redefinition on May 11, 2015. The press release was mostly ignored and when it wasn’t, it was mocked, but you can read it yourself here [2] and see how correct we were.
Meanwhile, consider again the fact that what we changed in May 2015 was the Article of the Constitution dealing with the family, and the family based on marriage.
That Article – Article 41 – describes the family as “the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.”
We are now to believe that the marriage of two straight male friends, Matt and Michael in this case, is as “natural primary and fundamental” to society as the conjugal union of male and female.