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Elton too old and unmarried for adoption, says Ukrainian minister
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 15 September 2009
A Ukrainian politician has said that Elton John would not be allowed to adopt a child from Ukraine, despite his plans to do so, because he is not married (at least not to a lady) and at 62 he’s too old.
As previously reported, John said at the weekend that he and his other half are considering adopting a child, a toddler from the Ukraine called Lev whose parents died of AIDS. While it had been Furnish’s ambition to adopt a child, Elton claimed he’d been reticent about the proposal until meeting Lev, saying: “David always wanted to adopt a child and I always said ‘no’ … But having seen Lev today, I would love to adopt him”.
Family, Youth And Sports Minister Yuriy Pavlenko told the Associated press that according to Ukrainian adoption laws, the age difference between the child and adopter must not be more than 45 years, and also that John and Furnish’s civil partnership would not be recognised as a marriage in the country. He said: “Foreign citizens who are single have no right to adopt children… and the age difference between the adopter and the child cannot be more than 45 years. The law is the same for everybody – for a president, for a minister, for Elton John”.
The BBC’s Ukraine correspondent Gabriel Gatehouse said that it was not quite as clear cut as Pavlenko had stated. Although he did not comment on the matter of the age difference, he said that whether or not the country would recognise their wedded status was a matter to be debated by politicians. The country is currently in the run up to a presidential election, due to take place in January, and the matter of foreign adoption was a sensitive subject in the candidates’ campaigns.
