ELLSWORTH – More than an hour into a recent forum on the state’s new gay rights law, there had been no mention of Mike Heath or his Christian Civic League of Maine.

“That’s great,” said Stan Moody, a state representative and Baptist minister from Manchester who supports the law.

But Heath’s figurative absence from the forum at Ellsworth City Hall wouldn’t last. It couldn’t.

The controversial figurehead of the league has been a powerful – although often vitriolic – opponent of the “gay agenda,” as he calls it. Twice, his group has derailed similar anti-discrimination initiatives despite public polling showing strong support in the weeks leading to the election.

Campaign watchers expect another close vote this year as Mainers on Nov. 8 consider repealing the law that makes it illegal to discriminate in areas including housing, employment and education based on sexual orientation.

The religious right’s past success has frustrated gay rights advocates, and within minutes of Moody’s observation, one audience member asked the Ellsworth panel how to respond to the likes of Heath. The mention of his name drew a scattered muttering of disapproval from the 30 or so people in the room.

“Jesus never called on us to hate anyone on account of anything,” said the Rev. David Henry of the Lamoine Baptist Church, alluding to the league’s harsh condemnation of homosexuality. “We are called to love in genuine ways.”

Both Henry and Moody are ordained Baptist ministers and both – contrary to their church’s more conservative brethren who align themselves with the league – oppose the repeal effort.

Religious divisions are nothing new in the debate over gay rights, which Maine voters have considered three times in the past 10 years with mixed results. The latest development in the current debate came last week when Moody, a Republican-turned-Democrat, formed the Christian Policy Institute of Maine as a “counterweight” to the league, which he said “encourages a culture of fear rather than hope.”

League members “are Christians who believe firmly that the abortionists and the gays are coming after them,” Moody said in an earlier interview in Augusta. “Well, I suspect the gay and lesbian community think these Christians are coming after them.”

Heath, whose organization often complains of a liberal bias in the media, did not respond to interview requests for this story.

The league, however, on Thursday released a statement calling Moody’s institute “just another attempt to direct the debate away from the radical homosexual agenda of trying to destroy traditional marriage and legalizing the homosexual lifestyle.”

A culture war?

Indeed, many of the league’s supporters readily argue that the referendum is not about discrimination, as its supporters maintain. Instead, it marks the latest skirmish in a culture war that, if lost, will legitimize homosexuality and, in time, lead to gay marriage.

“We are in a war for our families and our church, and we’re in a war for marriage,” said the Rev. Jerry Mick of the Bangor Baptist Church, where about 700 people come to worship each Sunday. “It’s not about fear; it’s reality. It’s just the truth.”

Mick estimated that 99 percent of his following believes homosexuality is a sin, a position that he said is bolstered in both the New and Old Testaments. With his Bible handy, Mick is quick to quote from the book of Romans, in which the apostle Paul discusses “dishonorable passions” among men who “gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.”

“That’s pretty clear. You either believe the Bible or you don’t,” Mick said in a Thursday interview. “They choose not to believe.”

Supporters note that Jesus himself is silent on the issue.

Back at the Ellsworth forum, hosted by the organization Maine Won’t Discriminate, which is trying to fend off the repeal effort, Henry said he was undecided on whether homosexuality was a sin. But even if it was, he said, it has little to do with extending basic civil rights to a minority group to ensure equal access to employment, housing and education.

“It is basic Christian teaching to treat everyone fairly,” Henry said recounting the Biblical story of Zacchias, a Roman tax collector whom Jesus befriended despite his reputation as a sinner.

While the religious debate over homosexuality has existed for centuries, the political debate in Maine only seems unending to those involved.

In 1995, Maine voters soundly rejected an attempt to prohibit local governments from enacting gay rights ordinances. In 1998 and 2000, however, they narrowly defeated anti-discrimination laws similar to that on the November ballot.

The debate at times has frustrated Tom Ewell, the longtime executive director of the Maine Council of Churches, which supports the new law.

“The league has been able to get people to believe some of the things Heath says like the Bible is going to rise or fall on the issue of homosexuality,” Ewell said in an interview from his Portland office. “It makes you laugh and cry at the same time. Those are such outrageous statements.”

Recently Heath’s group came under fire for seeming to insinuate in its online newsletter that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for New Orleans, where a gay pride parade had been scheduled.

A later explanation of the posting denied making such a claim, but did little to end the controversy by contending such views are “a matter of opinion – faith if you will – and are not capable of proof.”

“Every man must decide for himself whether or not Hurricane Katrina brought the wrath of God down on New Orleans,” the posting continued.

Political pulpit

The league’s online newsletter, the Record, has become one of its chief means of communicating with its membership, which consists of 55 “member or supporting” churches, most of which are Baptist, according to the league’s Web site.

That number pales in comparison to Ewell’s organization, which represents 600 churches within a variety of denominations – including the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

But despite its size, the highly organized league – with an army of volunteers – has had little trouble besting its more dispersed political opposition.

Ewell on Thursday said his group’s diversity prevented it from taking a prominent role in any campaign – including this year’s debate, in which the Catholic Church has remained neutral.

“Mobilizing the same kind of passionate energy among our constituents is difficult,” said Ewell, although adding he believed there has been a general decline in support for the league’s position. “Our message that we are defending our friends and neighbors who are gay and threatened with discrimination is a less passionate statement than [Heath’s] declaration of a cultural war.”

In Heath’s Web log, titled “Love is Patient,” it is clear that despite recent criticism from conservative clergy about his tone, he has not ratcheted down his rhetoric on the issue of homosexuality.

“Maine will decide on November 8th whether it will remain a solid lighthouse in the swirling moral hurricane that is forming around her, or be darkened by this modern storm of evil,” Heath wrote.

Opponents of the anti-discrimination law argue that losing the league’s cultural war would eventually lead to mainstream acceptance of gay marriage.

Supporters of the law note that it specifically does not sanction such unions. Furthermore, gay marriage is already prohibited by the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, which limits marriage to a man and a woman.

For some at the Ellsworth forum, including Henry, the law’s ultimate impact on marriage was uncertain. At the same time, however, it was also beside the point.

“I don’t know [about its effect on marriage], but I do know discrimination is wrong,” Henry told the audience. “If we do what is right, we will trust God to take care of the rest.”