AceShowbiz -

After getting slammed over his controversial statement about gay marriage in an interview with Huffington Post, on Friday, April 5, Jeremy Irons penned an open letter to clarify it. The 64-year-old actor said that he wasn't an anti-gay and people misinterpreted his argument.

In the open letter, Irons said that he was "deeply concerned" that from his online discussion with the Huffington Post on Wednesday, April 3, people thought he "hold a position that is anti gay. This is as far from the truth of me as to say that I believe the earth is flat."

"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 explained. "Clearly this was a mischievous argument, but nonetheless valid."

"I am clearly aware that many gay relationships are more long term, responsible and even healthier in their role of raising children, than their hetero equivalents, and that love often creates the desire to mark itself in a formal way, as Marriage would do. Clearly society should find a way of doing this," he continued.

Irons sparked a controversy when appearing on Huffington Post Live and telling host Josh Zepps that he "doesn't have a strong feeling either way" on the issue of marriage equality. "Could a father not marry his son?" Irons asked Zepps. "Incest is there to protect us from inbreeding, but men don't breed. 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."