The complex parentage of Elton John’s baby

The birth of Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish John gave that of Christ a run for its money in the broadcast news over Christmas. In Ireland, where I was, the newsreader declared that the singer Elton John and his partner, David Furnish, had had their first child. Hang on, I thought. Not so. Some woman, and possibly two – bear with me – has had a baby with one of them. And as it turned out, the birth mother was a client of the Center for Surrogate Parenting based in Encino, California, which has been providing surrogacy arrangements for gay would-be parents since 1989.

Elton John and David Furnish will, I’d have thought, make affectionate, not to say, doting, parents. Granted, Elton, 63, is getting on a bit, but were a woman of David Furnish’s age, 48, to have a baby by a man of Elton’s age, we probably wouldn’t get worked up about it.