The director of a conservative Catholic think tank in Ireland says he backs gay adoption over 'awful' orphanages.

Northern Ireland's High Court ruled yesterday (18 October) that a ban on gay and lesbian couples adopting children is unlawful, challenging the current law which states that a single gay or lesbian person can adopt but a couple in a civil partnership cannot.

Northern Ireland's Health Minister Edwin Poots says he will appeal the ruling. 

But the director of the Iona Institute, which promotes the ideal of a traditional heterosexual family, has come out in favor of same-sex couples adopting a child.

David Quinn said: 'If the choice is between being left in an orphanage and being raised by a loving single parent, a loving same-sex couple, or a loving unmarried couple, then absolutely the child has to be adopted.

'Institutions, even when they are well run, are awful places for a child to grow up in. I've seen this and there's no question about it.'

The High Court verdict came in a challenge to adoption laws brought by the NI Human Rights Commission.

Poots has a record of challenging pro-LGBT laws, having previously refused to lift a ban on gay people donating blood.

An outright ban was lifted in England, Scotland and Wales last year, but gay and bisexual men are still barred from giving blood for a year.