Nigel Farage told ITV's Good Morning Britain that "many, many" Muslims had more extreme views on homosexuality than Widdecombe.
"These things are matters of conscience, I don't think they are matters for party leaders to support or condemn," Farage said.
"Ann Widdecombe is a devout Christian and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion."
Ms Widdecombe (below) was accused of running a "sick" anti-LGBT campaign by Labour's Luke Pollard after she said, "The fact that we think it is now quite impossible for people to switch sexuality doesn't mean that science might not be able to produce an answer at some stage".
Mr Farage warned against criticising people for their faith.
"If we start to attack and condemn people because of religious conscience we are going to cause all sorts of problems, not just with Roman Catholics but with many, many others of Muslim faith who have even stronger feelings on this subject than Ann Widdecombe," he explained.
"What's intolerant is when the pack mentality decides that a certain group of people have a view that is not acceptable in the mainstream and they should be hounded out of public office for having a different point of view."
He added: "Let's have more people in public life who've got their own views on things rather than being told what they should think by mainstream media or their party leaders."
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