The vote on gay rights next week will be addressed from the pulpit and discussed in the pews this Sunday as churches across the state try to articulate why voting yes or no on Question 1 is the morally right thing to do.

Evangelical churches aligned under the Christian Civic League will be telling their parishioners to vote yes to overturn a law passed earlier this year by the Legislature that adds sexual orientation to the classes covered by the Maine Human Rights Act. The law already prohibits discrimination based on a person’s race, age, gender, religion or disability when it comes to employment, credit, housing, education and public accommodations.

Other churches, including some Methodists, Episcopalians, Unitarians, United Church of Christ members and even a few evangelical Baptists are encouraging a no vote to keep the law on the books. The Catholics are officially on the fence this time, but the church hierarchy admits some priests have and will be preaching activism.

“Individual churches are handling it differently,” said Jill Saxby of Cape Elizabeth, an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ and the incoming director of the Maine Council of Churches. Based on conversations she’s had with council members, church leaders already have talked about Question 1 or are planning to talk about it this Sunday.

The Episcopalians approved a resolution at their annual state convention last month to support the anti-discrimination law, calling on “all people of faith to work to eradicate unjust and unlawful discrimination in all its forms.”

Church spokeswoman, Heidi Shott, said she didn’t know if Question 1 would be discussed in the sermon this weekend, saying the topic depends “on whatever’s in the heart of a certain priest on that day.”

She did say the nearly unanimous support of the resolution at the Episcopal Convention was notable, given the internal strife in the church over the confirmation of the church’s first openly gay bishop – Rev. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire – in 2003.

“Within the Episcopal Church there’s a wide range of thought and opinion,” Shott said. “No matter where you are on the other components of this issue …we can come together on this.”

How effective the churches are at getting their parishioners out to vote could affect the outcome of Question 1, since gay rights is the most controversial issue on the ballot.

A yes vote will overturn the anti-discrimination law. A no vote keeps it on the books.

Baptists divided

The Rev. Stan Moody, pastor of the North Manchester Meeting House, who is also a legislator in the Statehouse, believes the evangelical churches preaching a yes vote on Question 1 are supporting discrimination.

He has created the Christian Policy Institute of Maine, what he calls a “think tank with an evangelical perspective” – to offer as a counter-weight to the Christian Civic League.

“These people have every right to organize, speak out and lobby,” he said, but “they’re not speaking for the 80 percent of evangelicals who are really trying to put some thought and prayer into the issues.”

Moody, who said he’s not comfortable telling people how to vote from the pulpit, is instead encouraging his parishioners to go “back to the basics of the Christian doctrine,” and love their neighbor.

“It’s a simple matter of loving your neighbor, even if you think that neighbor is your enemy,” he said. The Christian Civic League, he believes, is advocating “handpicking their neighbors.”

And, while he admits there are differing opinions on sexual orientation, he said the real issue for him is discrimination.

“They hammer away at sins,” he said of the churches connected with the Christian Civic League. “I hammer away at the condition of our own hearts.”

The Christian Civic League argues through its campaign literature that supporters of the gay rights bill are trying to paint opponents as haters to further their agenda.

“Are you willing to sit by while the Boy Scouts are labeled as haters, and cross-dressers, nudists and pedophiles are praised as heroes?” the literature asks.

The league says Question 1 is the first step toward gay marriage in Maine, and ultimately the demise of the family as a unit.

“Others in the gay rights movement…are now advocating that the traditional concept of marriage be abolished, to be replaced by legal unions between three or more people,” Michael Heath, head of the Christian Civic League, said in a speech at Bowdoin College.

“Where will it all end?” he rhetorically asked students. “Logically, it ends with the death of the institution of the family.”

Just say nothing

Marriage is at the heart of the Catholic Church’s reluctance to come out in support of the anti-discrimination law and against Question 1, even though it supported a similar but more carefully worded anti-discrimination law in 2000.

“We haven’t been active in the sense of proposing to Catholics that they vote one way or the other. We’ve very much avoided doing that,” said Marc Mutty, a spokesman and lobbyist for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

The church does not condone sex outside of marriage, nor does it condone same-sex marriage. It therefore can’t condone homosexual or lesbian behavior, but does oppose discrimination based on sexual orientation.

“For the Catholic Church, the big issue is not so much orientation, it’s behavior,” said Mutty, referring to a position outlined by Maine Bishop Richard Malone.

“We supported the bill in 2000…The wording was consistent with our teachings,” he said. “It made a very specific distinction between orientation and behavior,” by clearly stating that it was not an endorsement of behavior.

This time the Catholics weren’t invited to the table to amend the law in return for their support.

Even if they had been, Mutty said, some Catholics would have concerns about same-sex marriage.

“The bill is not about same-sex marriage. There is no direct correlation between the two. That said, there is a connection,” Mutty said, and gay couples could argue that if all other rights are protected under the state constitution, “why wouldn’t you grant us the remaining right…the right to marry?”

Mutty said the church has been accused of “being chicken” to take a stand, which isn’t the case.

“We’re not neutral…We have a lot of thoughts on this issue,” he said. “What the bishop is saying is a good practicing Catholic, who understands the teaching of the church, could conceivably vote either way on this issue.”

And, while priests are officially supposed to stay mum on the topic, Mutty conceded that some likely will raise the issue in this Sunday’s sermons.

The Maine Council of Churches, of which the Catholic Church is a member, has had no such reluctance to speak out against Question 1.

“Our denominations and local churches are hosting meetings,” said the Rev. Ed Poitras, president of the Council of Churches board, and some will speak out this Sunday.

He said the Christian Civic League was “using outrageous examples to scare people” about what will happen if the anti-discrimination law stays on the books.

“They’re using tactics which are completely cynical,” Poitras said, and fueling debate with “inflammatory rhetoric.”

Poitras, a United Methodist minister, said he is disappointed by the Catholic Church’s unwillingness to take a position on the referendum, and is concerned the church is bolstering the Christian Civic League’s argument that the anti-discrimination law is all about gay marriage.

“It was the wrong thing to do,” he said of Bishop Malone’s stand, but added, “all of us are in favor,” of ending discrimination by voting no on Tuesday.