Kate Forbes says people of faith are fearful of politics

The lingering sense of shock Kate Forbes still feels at the scale of the backlash against her during the race for Scotland's highest political office is very clear.

The 33-year-old had been on maternity leave from her role as Scotland's finance secretary when Nicola Sturgeon suddenly said she was quitting as first minister and SNP leader in February.

Ms Forbes was considered a frontrunner to replace Ms Sturgeon but within days of announcing her candidacy she found herself at the centre of a political storm about her religious views.

In response to interviews questions, she said the idea of having children outside of marriage conflicted with her Christian faith and confirmed that she was anti-abortion.

Ms Forbes also said she would not have voted for same-sex marriage if she had been a politician in 2014 when the law passed.

The backlash against these views led SNP colleagues to abandon her campaign in droves.

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In a frank interview with the BBC, Ms Forbes, who had been a high-ranking minister for three years, said: "I'd always been open about my views so there was no surprise that they were a topic of discussion and - in some quarters - concern.

"The surprise was that those who knew my position, immediately distanced themselves from me."

There was no way back after her campaign's dramatic downturn and in March she lost the election, coming second to Humza Yousaf, although by a narrower margin than many had predicted.

"If I had not been honest, if I had tried to make certain things more palatable or politically correct, would I have been more successful?," she says. "Perhaps."

But she adds that she does not regret what she said and has not changed any of her views.

Humza Yousaf defeated Kate Forbes in the leadership contest

Ms Forbes said she received "thousands" of messages from people who fundamentally disagreed with her position but supported her right to express her views and stand for office.

When Mr Yousaf was elected SNP leader and Scotland's first minister, Ms Forbes left the Scottish government and returned to being the backbench MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch.

She says with a smile that her faith tells her to forgive the colleagues she still works alongside who abandoned her campaign to be leader.

But her experience leads her to believe that people of faith are being squeezed out of political life.

She says: "I do think there is a fear which characterises right now any discussions about faith.

"I do think people of faith are a minority and certainly my experience is they are, by and large, fearful.

"So they either feel like they have to hide their faith or adapt it and that is a cause for concern."

'I can't pick and choose beliefs'

Ms Forbes says she does not know if seeing a public figure like her being "absolutely traduced" for her views has made them braver or more fearful.

At the heart of Ms Forbes' identity is her membership of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland, whose evangelical Christian ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland in the 19th Century.

Ms Forbes feels that her own religious views were "100%" scrutinised more than those of Mr Yousaf - who has describes himself as a proud Muslim who fasts during Ramadan.

Nicola Sturgeon announced she was quitting in February after more than eight years as first minister

During the leadership campaign he was asked about his religious views and about gay marriage, something he said he supported even though he missed the vote on the issue in 2014.

Ms Forbes insists she holds to her faith "in its entirety" while others are making their religion more palatable in order to make themselves electable.

It is a view that dismisses the many politicians who say their deep faith is not in conflict with issues such as support for same-sex marriage.

Ms Forbes bristles a little at the suggestion that it was not just having a faith but her "brand" of faith - and the views it informs - that made it difficult for her to get elected.

"Yes, I talked at the time about fairly orthodox mainstream Christian teaching but my following the teachings of Jesus - which is based on a belief in the Bible - means that I don't feel I'm in a position to just pick and choose what I believe is truth or not," she says.

Given this stance, during the campaign it was confusing to some observers that while Ms Forbes said she would not have voted for gay marriage, now that it was the law she would defend the right of same-sex couples to marry.

"I'm a servant of democracy," she says again now. "And in a democracy you have a debate, there is a vote by majority, and then it's for every leader to uphold."

As bruising as her experience has been, Kate Forbes says she was heartened by what she calls "the backlash to the backlash" against her and the fact that she did go on to secure 48% of the SNP vote.

If anything, she says she feels it is now all the more important for someone like her to remain in politics.

"I'm obviously at a crossroads because I'm no longer in government," she says.

"I have a 10-month old baby who's most demanding of my time, and I've got a constituency that I've been absent from for the duration of maternity leave. So there's lots to be getting stuck into and we'll see what happens next."