Christian MP Dr Lisa Cameron has shared how she had felt marginalised in the SNP because of her faith.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, she explained how her former party colleagues spoke against her selection because of her Christian views and she felt pressured not to vote in line with her beliefs.
Dr Cameron, who has now moved to the Conservative Party, voted against regulations imposing a liberal abortion regime on Northern Ireland in 2020. In 2015, she opposed Labour MP Rob Marris’s Private Members’ Bill to introduce assisted suicide in England and Wales.
‘Unwelcome’
Dr Cameron, a member of the Free Church of Scotland, said she experienced similar difficulties to former SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes.
“I felt very much that being a Christian was something that was not welcome in the SNP”.
When Dr Cameron wrote to Scottish Secretary Alister Jack to raise women’s “grave concerns” over the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, she claimed it was “treated like almost heresy, raising my constituents’ concerns”.
Support
Earlier this month, Christian MSP Kate Forbes emphasised that the Equality Act 2010 has to protect everyone, including Christians.
In an interview with journalist Kevin McKenna, the MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch said she received “literally thousands of letters and emails” of support, after being attacked for upholding biblical sexual ethics during the SNP leadership contest.
Forbes explained: “If the Equality Act exists it must exist for every role in society. It doesn’t just exist for the cleaner or the teacher. Surely it also exists for the First Minister of Scotland or for those who aspire to be. Religious faith, as with other characteristics in the Equality Act, is protected.”
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