Elton John and his longtime partner David Furnish were hoping to adopt a Ukrainian orphan, but have been denied because of a national law that prohibits unmarried couples from adopting. Despite the fact that John and Furnish tied the knot in 2005 in one of the first legal civil unions in the U.K, Yuruy Pavlenko (Ukraine's Family, Youth and Sports Minister) says that Ukraine does not recognize homosexual unions as marriage.On top of that, another law requires potential adoptive parents to be no more than 45 years older than the child to be adopted. Elton John is 62, making him ineligible to adopt the 14-month-old boy, named Lev. John met the boy while touring a hospital for HIV-infected children as part of a charity project.
While Pavlenko said Ukraine was grateful for John's charity work, he says: "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."