Elton John, Gay Partner Denied Adoption of Boy

The Ukrainian orphan Elton John wants to adopt will not go home with the singer and his gay partner David Furnish, due to a national law that prohibits unmarried couples from adopting.

The singer toured a hospital for HIV-infected children in Ukraine on Saturday as part of a charity project and said that he and his boy friend wanted to adopt a 14-month-old boy, HIV-infected boy named Lev. But the country's Family, Youth and Sports Minister Yuriy Pavlenko said Ukraine does not recognize homosexual unions as marriage.

Pavlenko also said John was too old. The singer is 62 and Ukrainian law requires a parent to be no more than 45 years older than an adopted child.

"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," Pavlenko said. "The law is the same for everybody: for a president, for a minister, for Elton John."

John and Furnish, his gay partner, were one of the first legalized civil unions in the United Kingdom in 2005. See Chick's DOOM TOWN.