Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Is faith-based opposition to gay marriage a ‘protected characteristic’?

Kate Forbes [Getty]

Kate Forbes’s run for First Minister may be short-lived but it will certainly be interesting. Her challenge: she’s a member to the Free Church of Scotland which opposes gay marriage, abortion and gender self-ID. For seven years as a parliamentarian she has avoided saying what she thinks about such issues and for obvious reasons: it would cause her problems. But today she was asked directly and gave a straight answer: she would have voted against gay marriage and would have ‘struggled’ to back Nicola Sturgeon on gender self-ID.

I’m a member of the SNP and I believe that no office should be removed from any candidate on the basis of protected characteristics, including faith. I think there’s a way to square my faith as well as my membership and leadership of the SNP – and that includes things like having to love my neighbour.

So why would she run to be leader of a party whose membership are very much in favour of both? In her first interview round since going on maternity leave last summer, she told STV’s Colin Mackay that she is making a plea for tolerance.

So she regards her Calvinism as a ‘protected characteristic’, a phrase which has a specific meaning in politics and law. Sadiq Khan, for example, is unlikely to be asked if he backs gay marriage – not just because this isn’t really relevant to his duties as Mayor of London but because this would be seen as a dig at his being Muslim. He voted for it, so does it matter what he personally believes? And no, it would not be hypocritical to think one way and vote another on such issues. You can be against gay marriage in your own church, mosque or synagogue – but through a belief in liberty, vote to ensure that others can arrange their own affairs in any way they like.

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