NSW Premier Kristina Keneally is under fire for using the scripture quote "Jesus sat with the sinners and saints" during discussions about same-sex adoption legislation before Parliament.
Ms Keneally was forced to clarify later that she did not mean to compare homosexuals to sinners, according to reports in the Herald-Sun and the Sydney Morning Herald.
"That's not all what I meant to say," she is cited saying by AAP.
"My point is this - is that Jesus loved all. He loved all and he accepted all. And for me that is the strongest message that comes out of the gospel."
She would give "in principle support" for the same-sex adoption Bill introduced to Parliament last week by independent MP and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, the reports said.
"My religious views do not play a part in the legislation that I, as the leader of the Labor Party, bring before the government," the Sydney Morning Herald quotes her saying.
"But I think it's fair for people to say: 'You're a practising Catholic, a practising Christian. How do you reconcile the view you are putting forward publicly with the faith that you profess to hold?'
"When I see gay and lesbian people giving that unselfish love to a child, that's something that I - not just as a Christian and a Catholic but as the leader of this state - want to support."
Separately, in Mexico City, the archdiocese said even if the country's Supreme Court upholds the legalising of adoption by gay couples, it would still be immoral in the eyes of the Church.
"We are respectful, although we do not agree on the moral point of view," the Catholic News Agency reports from Archdiocese of Mexico City spokesman Father Hugo Valdemar.
Children have a right to grow up in a home consisting of a father and a mother, he said, in order to ensure their comprehensive development.
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