To Scottish Finance Minister Kate Forbes, denouncing the animosity that is rising in contemporary British culture is insufficient. Instead, she's looking to actively stand up to it.
"I believe in the person of Jesus Christ. I believe that he died for me, he saved me and that my calling is to serve and to love him and to serve and love my neighbors with all my heart and soul and mind and strength....I am a person before I was a politician and that person will continue to believe that I am made in the image of God," she openly declared in an interview with the BBC on May 21.
In an interview with the BBC's Political Thinking podcast, Ms. Forbes claimed she had never sought to conceal her faith. However, she said that she felt just as guilty as anybody in walking on eggshells around the issue, fearing and believing that the public would believe she and her organization just represented herself, rather than everyone.
According to the International Christian Concern (ICC), Forbes is the daughter of Scottish missionaries who went to India. She went back to the U.K. and finished her studies in history and migration before getting a job as an accountant.
Her noteworthy career, particularly in Scottish politics, began only when she was 31. In a very short time span, she was one of Scotland's top candidates, selected by one of the Scottish Parliament's political parties to run for office, and she was successful in being elected in 2016. Forbes then became the first woman in the U.K. to present the Scottish Budget to Parliament in 2020, when she served as the country's Finance Minister.
Despite her contributions, she has lately come under attack for statements she made about her beliefs. As of 2018, she was still a member of the Scottish Parliament, and at a prayer breakfast in Edinburgh, she made her public prayer. In it, she said, "May our politicians recognize that the way we treat the most vulnerable - whether the unborn or the terminally ill - is a measure of true progress."
This one sentence about defending the unborn was enough to garner her widespread resentment from people in the British press on the left. Additionally, when the news broke that she was being considered for the post of finance minister, activists with the pro-LGBT movement had doubts about her eligibility for the position, given she does not believe in redefining marriage.
"Those who disagree with me call out my side [for prejudice], but I look at my Twitter timeline and the levels of vitriol, abuse and creative insults are such that I cannot read it," she said. "So, I think the problem is not by any means monopolized by one side, and my job and other's job is to try and break that mold."
While noting that people's life experiences differ, she also said that politicians should be able to be compassionate toward everyone, regardless of whether they have "walked in their shoes or completely understand where they are coming from."
"I would like to think if you asked a single politician on the opposite benches in the Scottish parliament whether they respect me, whether they disagree with me, and whether I can build relationships with them, all of them to a person would say yes. So, it starts with us, not just calling vitriol, but with doing things differently."
