No Ukrainian Adoption For Elton John

KIEV, UKRAINE - Elton John won't be able to adopt a 14-month-old HIV-positive child from Ukraine because the pop star is too old and isn't married, the government said Monday.
Adoption and gay rights advocates expressed regret about the determination by Family, Youth and Sports Minister Yuriy Pavlenko, while a children's charity had reservations about John's weekend announcement that he and his male partner, David Furnish, wanted to adopt the boy.
John announced his desire after meeting the boy, named Lev, while touring an orphanage Saturday as part of an anti-AIDS charity project.
"I don't know how we do that, but he has stolen my heart. And he has stolen David's heart and it would be wonderful if we can have a home," John said.
But Pavlenko told The Associated Press that the adoption will not happen because adoptive parents must be married and because the pop star is too old.
The singer is 62 and Ukrainian law requires a parent to be no more than 45 years older than an adopted child.
John and Furnish tied the knot in 2005 in one of the first legalized civil unions in Britain, but Pavlenko said Ukraine does not recognize gays unions as marriage.
"Elton John will not be able to adopt a Ukrainian child and if he files that request we will unfortunately deny it," Pavlenko said. "The law is the same for everybody: for a president, for a minister, for Elton John."
John spokesman Gary Farrow declined to comment.
Pavlenko said Ukraine was grateful for the singer's charity work and expressed hope that his desire to adopt Lev would spur the domestic adoption of more children with health problems, which is still rare in Ukraine.
Pavlenko said domestic adoptions have increased significantly thanks to government childcare supplements and maternity leave for adoptive families. In 2004, Ukrainian families adopted about 1,500 children compared with 2,500 adoptions by foreigners. This year, 2,500 orphans were adopted locally while 1,000 found homes abroad.
However, Ukrainians are still reluctant to adopt ill, psychologically challenged children or those older than 10. Pavlenko said that only about 30 HIV-positive children have been adopted since 2007. About 32,000 Ukrainian orphans are waiting to be adopted this year, but only 2,000 Ukrainian families are lined to adopt them.
Albert Pavlov, head of the Happy Child foundation for orphaned and sick children in Zaporizhia, said he opposed adoption by gays, but called for removing age and marriage restrictions for adopters.
"I don't understand why a middle-aged single woman, if she is in good health, cannot raise a child," Pavlov said.
Svyatoslav Sheremet, head of Ukraine's Gay Forum, a leading gay rights organization in Ukraine, said the regulations were depriving the boy of a chance to find a family and love.
"If I were that child, I would feel very bitter and sad," Sheremet said.
Yukie Mokuo, UNICEF representative in Ukraine, said that foreign adoptions should be encouraged when no local families can be found.
But charity Save the Children UK, which also expressed misgivings over Madonna's adoption of a girl from Malawi, said celebrity adoptions risked sending the wrong message about how best to help foreign children.
"International adoption can actually exacerbate the problem it hopes to solve" by encouraging parents to abandon children in the hope of giving them a better life, spokesman Adrian Lovett said.
"Most orphans in institutions, including in Ukraine, have one or both parents still living, or have an extended family that could care for them with the right support," Lovett said in a statement.
from The Associated Press

Elton's Real Admiral

Can you feel the military tonight? Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish emerged triumphantly in full Reg-imental garb from Shoreditch Town Hall in the East End of London.
The couple was not returning from a reenactment of a World War I battle; rather, they had just celebrated John's 60th birthday, along with Sir Paul McCartney, the Osbournes and Kate Moss. The black-tie affair was studded with other high-ranking members of the British social army, including Hugh Grant, Sting and Thandie Newton.
from TMZ

Elton John Says Religion Encourages Hatred

LONDON - Organized religion fuels anti-gay discrimination and other forms of bias, pop star Elton John said in an interview published Saturday.
"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people," John said in the Observer newspaper's Music Monthly Magazine. "Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays."
"But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion," he said. "From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."
John also criticized religious leaders for failing to do anything about conflicts around the world.
"Why aren't they having a conclave? Why aren't they coming together?"
John said those in his own field have been similarly lax.
"It's like the peace movement in the '60s. Musicians got through to people by getting out there and doing peace concerts, but we don't seem to do them any more," he said. "If John Lennon were alive today, he'd be leading it with a vengeance."
from The Associated Press

Boy George Criticizing Others

Boy George is bitter. After a troubled year culminating in a spell sweeping the streets of New York after a cocaine bust, the famously outspoken singer has returned to one of the things he does best: giving his contemporaries a taste of his acid tongue.
In an outspoken attack on fellow stars, he describes Madonna as "vile", Sir Elton John as a drama queen who appeals to "common-or-garden homosexuals", and Robbie Williams's music as "terrible". And those are some of his more polite descriptions in his expletive-strewn putdowns.
The singer also reveals that, despite his high profile and fortune, he is a regular user of gay prostitutes and tells how he lost himself in a blur of cocaine.
George, 45, has spent much of the past 12 months wrestling with personal issues after being arrested for cocaine possession. He was eventually ordered to serve five days' community service in August in a very public humiliation, which saw him hounded by TV crews, photographers and reporters as he swept gutters in Manhattan.
The singer and DJ has been in the public eye for a quarter of a century, first finding fame as the androgynous "gender bender" frontman for Culture Club, who affronted Middle England with his appearances on Top of the Pops in full make up, effeminate clothes and long, ribboned hair.
Now, in a new Channel 4 documentary, he has proved he has lost none of the power to shock by rounding on numerous celebrities. His choicest venom is reserved for Madonna.
In an extended rant, he splutters: "Madonna... I just think she's a vile, hideous, horrible human being with no redeeming qualities. There's nothing nice about her. I've never heard anyone say anything nice about her at all. And anyone that's ever met her she's been vile to. Vile, full of herself - so unspiritual. How has this woman got away with it for so long?"
As for Robbie Williams, he says: "He could use my help; the last album was terrible. He's at that point now where he's just throwing anything out - he needs another 'Angels' or something really classy. That new thing he's got out, it makes Ronan Keating look like a genius."
George let the cameras into his east London flat, which he has decorated with homoerotic artworks. His bed linen is decorated with the names of some of the people he has slept with, including his former long-term love Jon Moss, the drummer of Culture Club. His pillows also detail some of his sexual exploits.
"I like gay sex," he says. He also admits paying for sex and using the internet to trawl for partners. "Straight people have been doing it for years. Prostitution is the oldest, most respected profession. I don't think there's anything wrong with it."
During filming of The Madness of Boy George, to be screened on Tuesday, he is asked whether Sir Elton is a gay role model. "If you're a common-or-garden homosexual then maybe, but not if you're a fag like I am. I'm not an Elton John type of gay. I'm not vanilla" (into boring sex).
In the mid-1980s after his chart success started to slip, George turned to heroin like others in his social scene; he sunk back into drug use following the savaging of his stage show Taboo, when it went to Broadway, culminating in his bust last year. He had confusedly called police himself.
Although he calls his punishment "a media service day, not community service", he is upbeat about street sweeping. "I've enjoyed it, in a bizarre, perverse Boy George kind of way."
By George...
On Madonna: "I just think she's a vile, hideous, horrible human being with no redeeming qualities. There's nothing nice about her. I've never heard anyone say anything nice about her at all."
On Robbie Williams: "He could use my help. The last album was terrible. He's at that point where he's just throwing anything out. He needs another 'Angels' or something really classy."
On Andrew Lloyd Webber: "[People] always go on about 'theatre is a dying art form and we must save it', and then we just put on another Andrew Lloyd Webber re-run. It's tragic."
On Elton John: (after a hotel lift failed on him): "Imagine if that was Elton John, the drama that would have ensued? David Furnish would be spitting feathers right now."
from The Independent

Elton John Ends Spat With George Michael

LONDON - Elton John has put an end to his feud with fellow British pop star George Michael, declaring "we're fine."
The row erupted two years ago when John said Michael appeared to be in a "strange place," wasting his talent by staying at home and shunning the limelight.
Michael later complained that harsh media treatment of his private life started after John's adverse comments.
But Elton John was all sweetness and light on Friday, telling ITV host Michael Parkinson: "George and I are fine. He came and stayed down my house last year. We're fine."
Putting an end to his public spat, John said "I'd rather keep my mouth shut ... It's up to him what he does with his life really and I don't really want to get into that anymore."
Michael ended years of speculation about his sexuality by announcing he was gay after he was arrested in 1998 for engaging in a "lewd act" in a public toilet in Los Angeles.
Michael, the former frontman of Wham, was arrested in February for possessing illegal drugs.
The singer, who has sold more than 80 million records with hits like "Careless Whisper," is to launch his first tour in 15 years later this month in Barcelona.
from Reuters

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