By Karen Best

On a trip to Ukraine to do charity work Elton John visited a hospital for HIV-infected children. While touring the hospital John and his partner David Furnish met and fell in love with a baby named Lev. The couple took to Lev so much they decided they wanted to adopt him.

Unfortunately for John, he did not meet the qualifications to adopt under Ukrainian law. Ukrainian family minister, Yuriy Pavlenko, informed John that because he is over 45 years older than Lev and isn’t in a traditional marriage he was ineligible to adopt. In Ukrainian homosexual marriages are not recognized. Also, the adopting parents must not be over 45 years of the adopted child and John is 62.

Pavlenko stated, “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.”

At Leeds Morelli & Brown, PC, we try to accommodate as many of our clients’ legal needs as possible. This builds trust and provides value to the client in many ways. And although our firm has earned a tremendous reputation in cases that can generally be described as civil rights or employment litigation, the experience and skills we have developed in those matters translate very well to matters involving family law. For more information, contact Leeds, Morelli and Brown, PC at 1-800-585-4658 for a free consultation.