Kate Forbes has suggested she may not see out her SNP leadership campaign, insisting she is still in the running to replace Nicola Sturgeon “at the moment”.

The Finance Secretary, along with Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan, are vying to become the next first minister after Ms Sturgeon’s resignation last week.

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But Ms Forbes, a member of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland, lost some of her high-profile supporters in the leadership contest after she said she would not have voted for gay marriage.

She has now said that having children outside of marriage “would be wrong according to my faith” and is something she would personally “seek to avoid”.

Asked for her views on this, Ms Forbes told Sky News that having a child out of wedlock “would be wrong according to my faith”, but stressed it was a choice for people to make in a free society.

She also said she had “celebrated” babies born to family members and friends who were unmarried.

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“We either live in a tolerant society where I can celebrate the birth of children, irrespective of the family, or not and do celebrate those lives being brought into the world.”

Ms Forbes was on maternity leave following the birth of her first child last year when she launched her campaign to succeed Ms Sturgeon on Monday.

Within hours she had revealed she would not have voted for same-sex marriage if she had been in Holyrood when the legislation was passed, with these comments seeing her lose the support of some high-profile backers, including employment minister Richard Lochhead, public finance minister Tom Arthur, and children’s minister Clare Haughey.

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Asked by STV News if she was still committed to seeing her campaign through, despite that loss of support, Ms Forbes said: “At the moment, yes.”

She added “at the moment” she was committed to continuing her campaign until March 27 – when the ballot for SNP members to choose their party’s new leader closes.

Ms Forbes had earlier said that to be speaking forthrightly about her religious views, she had tried to “answer straight questions with straight answers”.