Ultra-conservatives can stop worrying. Elton John and his civil partner David Furnish are not going to adopt. The pair have 10 godchildren, from such celebrities as Elizabeth Hurley and Victoria Beckham. And though Elton is playing his final Vegas show tonight, their lives are still “too busy” to settle down with a larger family. They have been in a British civil union since 2005, and have been dating for 12 years, and David says that one reason they decided to have their union legally recognized was for “human rights.”

Sir Elton John may be set to play his 250th and final performance of his show, The Red Piano, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas Wednesday night, but that doesn’t mean he and partner David Furnish will suddenly settle down to build a family.

“I don’t think our lives are suited to raising children,” Furnish, 46, told PEOPLE at last weekend’s GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles. “We’re busy flying places all the time.”

Said Furnish, “Elton is not really going to come off the road. We don’t want to put the raising of children into the hands of nannies and housekeepers. We want to be active parents. We have godchildren [and] kids that we support in Africa, so we’re fine.”

Furnish, 46, and John, 62, have 10 godchildren, including the offspring of pals Victoria Beckham and Elizabeth Hurley.

After dating for 12 years, the two were joined in a civil partnership in December 2005, under a then-new British law for same-sex couples. So while Furnish and John are not married, they enjoy similar benefits to married couples.

Reflecting on their time together, Furnish says, “When all the dust settled, we looked at each other and said, ‘Wow, this feels really nice.’ We did it in Britain in a civil partnership, initially for human rights reasons. We recognized it as ground-breaking legislation we wanted to send a message out to the world that we felt it was something that deserved recognition and support.”

But civil partnership is more than a political statement, says Furnish: “Your love and union has been ratified and accepted by society, and that’s a really nice feeling.”

[From People]

Elton and David have a very realistic perspective on their relationship. Elton recognizes that one of the reasons people had a problem with Prop 8 was the fact that the word “marriage” was included. Elton says that gays shouldn’t get married; they should get civil unions. Heterosexuals, he continues, can keep the word “marriage” for their own. However, civil unions generally don’t give exactly the same rights afforded to heterosexual partners in marriage.

Another reason they may have decided not to adopt is that Elton is 62 and David is 46, which means that their child would have very old fathers. In 2001, Elton told the tabloid Aftonbladet that he had “come to the conclusion that it is too late for me. Had it been 20 years ago, then I would definitely have done it. I don’t want to be 70 years old when my daughter turns 16.”

Elton and David are very realistic about their relationship and its implications – a viewpoint for which you have to give them kudos.

Here’s Sir Elton and David Furnish leaving the Mayfair Hotel in London on December 15th. Images thanks to WENN.com .