The leader of Scotland's Catholics has attacked gay couples who seek parental rights, claiming they are being "selfish".

Archbishop Mario Conti said children would become the inevitable victims of moves to give gay and lesbian couples the same rights as married heterosexual parents.

And he criticised parents who lived out of wedlock, claiming that statistics showed they were more likely to split up than those who are married.

His remarks were attacked by gay rights campaigners as prejudiced.

Archbishop Conti spoke out after two major cases involving gay parents were settled in court. Edinburgh sheriff Noel McPartlin recently granted parental rights to a lesbian couple over children they each had from previous relationships.

In the second case in Glasgow, a natural father was granted parental rights despite the wishes of the child's lesbian mother.

Archbishop Conti said there was a danger that the traditional "Christian view" that children were best brought up in heterosexual, married relationships would be blurred by the drive to satisfy the "selfish desires of adults".

He accepted there were circumstances when the welfare of children required parental rights to be granted to "surrogates".

But he added: "The extension of these rights demeans the natural basis of parenthood, a basis that must remain the norm."

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