Elton must battle gay adoption ban

Elton must battle gay adoption ban

By OLIVER HARVEY

and SHARON HENDRY

Published: Today

ELTON John faces a legal battle over his dream to adopt a Ukrainian tot - because the country BANS gay couples from doing so.

The superstar and partner David Furnish, 46, are also deemed TOO OLD under national laws.

Their only hope would be a presidential dispensation to take home 14-month-old Lev - after 62-year-old Elton declared at the weekend: "He has stolen my heart."

It was also revealed that if Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko were to grant their wish the pair would have to adopt Lev's BROTHER as well. He too is in care - and Ukrainian law states siblings must be adopted together.

Loving ... Lev with Elton's partner David Furnish

Elton was smitten with chubby-cheeked Lev after giving a piano to an orphanage in Makeeva and performing his Lion King hit Circle Of Life for the 80 children there - many of whom have Aids.

The singer said: "David always wanted to adopt a child and I always said no because I am 62 and I think because of the travelling I do and the life I have, maybe it wouldn't be fair for the child.

"But having seen Lev today, I would love to adopt him.

"I don't know how we do that but he has stolen my heart."

Elton said he also changed his mind following the death of his keyboard player pal Guy Babylon, 52 - killed by a heart attack last week.

He said: "What better opportunity to replace someone I lost than to replace him with someone I can give a future to." But he confessed: "I don't know what the procedure is to adopt a boy from the Ukraine."

If Elton WERE to become Lev's dad the boy would take his Christian name as his middle name under Ukrainian law.

He would become Lev Eltonovich John - or if the adoption was in the singer's real name, Lev Reginaldovich Dwight.

But sadly the same laws dash the star's hopes of following in the footsteps of Angelina Jolie - who has three adopted children from Cambodia, Vietnam and Ethiopia - and Madonna, who adopted a little girl from Malawi earlier this year.

The laws not only ban same-sex adoptive parents but state they cannot be more than 45 years older than the child.

Elton - who is godfather to ten children including David and Victoria Beckham's sons - was invited to visit the orphanage by billionaire's wife Olena Franchuk, 38.

The blonde, whose dad Leonid Kuchma used to lead the country. said: "He is here to make wonders come true in the lives of the most unfortunate people - HIV-infected children, who have no families."

o.harvey@the-sun.co.uk

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2635186/Elton-John-must-battle-gay-adoption-ban.html