WATCH: Kate Forbes ‘very sorry for any hurt that I have caused anyone’

Kate Forbes has said she is “very sorry” for any hurt that she has “caused anyone” amid an online storm over her comments about gay marriage.

Earlier, she told the Courier that she holds “absolutely” no animus to same sex couples and would defend their right to marry “to the hilt” after admitting she would not have voted for the change of the law allowing gay people to wed.

Since then she has lost several high profile supporters including Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey MP Drew Hendry as well as Moray MSP Richard Lochhead.

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But she also came out strongly against those who attacked her when her words at a prayer breakfast became public, saying: “For anybody to be monitoring anybody’s prayers is a remarkable development in Scottish life.

“For that to now be monitored as to whether or not that is acceptable in the public’s eyes I think raised enormous questions about Scottish society and about illiberalism.”

Addressing the question of abortion, she said: “I could not conceive of having an abortion but I have zero intention or interest in changing the law that allows other people to have an abortion.”

She added: “There will always be Twitter storms but I am obviously very sorry for any hurt that I have caused anyone because that was never my intention.

“My intention was to seek to be honest and open and answer straight questions with a straight answer.”

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