Mother Teresa's charity the Missionaries of Charity has stopped adoptions in India after new government guidelines which allowed single parents to adopt.

However, in a bizarre claim, the charity has blamed 'gays and lesbians' for stopping adoptions.

According to pinknews.co.uk and Gay Star News, has shut down all orphanages so that 'the children will not have gay or divorced parents'.

Speaking about the decision not to offer adoptions, Sister Amala told UK media: "The new guidelines hurt our conscience. They are certainly not for religious people like us. What if the single parent who we give our baby [to] turns out to be gay or lesbian? What security or moral upbringing will these children get? Our rules only allow married couples to adopt."

The Modi government's WCD Ministry had recently decided to implement the revised guidelines of the Juvenile Justice Act, which allow single parents to adopt, among other amendments.

Related Read: Orphanages run by Mother Teresa foundation to close down?

"Till now the Mother Teresa's (Foundation) orphanages had their own agenda and now when they have to come under a unified secular agenda they are refusing it. They have decided not to follow the guidelines," WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi had said. She said that the ministry will try to persuade them to put children up for adoption.

"We will try and persuade them because they are valuable people and have experience. But if they do not listen then those children will have to be shifted to other places," she said. 13 of the 16 orphanages running under Missionaries of Charity have applied for cancellation of registration.