Sir Elton John & husband David Furnish
Photo by the pinknews
By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Sept 17 | So one of the wealthier men in the world, a prominent activist in the international effort to end the scourge of HIV-AIDS, someone who can stroke a cheque in an instant for millions of Euros/Dollars/Pounds and who happens to be a musical superstar, wants to rescue a child infected with the virus, and he's a sinner?
The Orthodox Church in Ukraine has said that gay singer Elton John is "a sinner" and should not be allowed to adopt a child from one of the country's orphanages.
The singer has not made an adoption application, but admitted that a 14-month-old boy he met while visiting an institution had "stolen [his] heart" and changed his mind about adopting a child.
Although Sir Elton and his partner David Furnish are in a civil partnership, Ukraine does not recognise this as marriage. In addition, at 62, he is too old to adopt under the country's laws.
The Donetsk Diocese of the Orthodox Church has rounded on gay couples who adopt, with spokesman Father Georgy Gulyaev saying: "Thank God it's impossible under Ukrainian law for Elton John to adopt a child."
According to the Daily Mail, he continued: "People pretend to have good intentions, create semi-marriages and so-called families, and moreover they dare to adopt children. Unlike people who are blessed by God to create natural families, these are people who succumb to their passions."
"This is definitely a sin, there is no other word for it, and the church will never agree that people who have created same-sex "marriage" could also dare to adopt children." He said.
"This applies to all, including Elton John. He is a sinner."
Lev, the child Sir Elton met at the Makeyevka orphanage, was placed there because his mother has HIV. The singer was visiting the organisation as part of his extensive charity work for HIV and AIDS.
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1 comments:
To me this is a difficult area, not because Elton and David are a committed gay couple, but in part because of Elton's age and in part the laws of the Ukraine.
A 62 year old dad is not hugely unusual, yet it tends not to be a great age to have an active young child. Running round the garden tends to make the 62 year old breathless very early on. My own father was 52 when I was born and he was not a lot of use in games that needed exertion.
So I can see why an adoption organisation wishes for a more youthful person as an adoptive parent.
If Ukraine requires adoptive parents to be married, and that is their law, then that is their law. And gay marriage seems not to cross national boundaries. If that is really what this is about, gay marriage needing to cross national boundaries, then we are smoking opium if we believe that will happen in our lifetime. Islamic nations for sure do not countenance homosexuality.
There is an area that has not been touched upon. A relevant charity is saying that celebrity adoptions are a bad idea because they give false hope to the parents in poverty. They say that such parents may dump their kids in an orphanage for the change of a far,far better life, and thus that celebrities ought not to adopt in this high profile manner. Well done, Mad Donna!
But "sinners" they are not, Elton and David, and nor are any LGBT folk, in partnerships or not. If there is a deity and if that deity created them, then they are as they were created. Deities tend to be infallible. I never heard of a religion yet in which one apologised. "I'm really sorry about the hippopotamus, I got that one so badly wrong" is not a line one hears often.
So LGBT folk are meant to be here (if created by a deity) or simply evolved for some reason or other that no-one can quite work out. After all we tend not to breed that often.
And if we are meant to be here and are as intended by a deity, we cannot be sinners, can we?
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