election as a de facto referendum to be a way to apply pressure on the UK government to grant permission to hold a formal referendum "rather than it being necessarily a referendum in and of itself". She said she wanted to achieve independence by delivering economic growth. Members of the SNP expressed concern over Forbes's membership of the Free Church of Scotland, an evangelical Calvinist denomination with socially conservative positions on abortion and LGBT issues. The Church opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, as well as a proposed ban on conversion therapy. Forbes said she "[makes her] own decisions" on issues "according to [her] faith, not according to the diktat of any church". Forbes called criticism of her religious views "illiberal discourse" and said that "if my faith is the only thing that people can find to attack, that suggests that my competence, my vision and my experience, speak for themselves". At a prayer breakfast in 2018, Forbes had said that progress should be measured by how society treated the "unborn", a reference to abortion policy. After launching her leadership campaign, she said that she would not have voted to legalise same-sex marriage if she had been in office at the time, but that she would defend it now it was law. Due to these comments, Forbes lost the support of the ministers Richard Lochhead, Clare Haughey and Tom Arthur. She also lost the support of the backbenchers Gillian Martin MSP and Drew Hendry MP. Forbes said she had tried "to answer straight questions with straight answers", but that she regretted "enormously the pain or hurt that has been caused" by her comments. On the issue of conversion therapy, Forbes said that any laws should also protect freedom of expression for religious people. On 20 February she said that she would not have supported the Gender Recognition Reform bill in its current form and would have resigned from Sturgeon's cabinet if she had not been on maternity leave during the vote. She does not support challenging the UK government's Section 35 order stopping it, instead seeking to negotiate with the UK government to agree changes to the bill. She said that she disagreed with the principle of gender self-identification being sufficient for recognition. When asked if trans women are women, Forbes said that "a trans woman is a biological male who identifies as a woman". One of the co-conveners of the