AUGUSTA – Members of the Judiciary Committee, who are holding a day-long public hearing on a same-sex marriage bill on Wednesday, will be the first state legislators to officially take a position on the controversial measure.

If some had hoped to shield themselves from criticism for their votes, either behind a unified religious voice or a definitive public opinion poll, they are out of luck.

Maine’s clergy, including local religious leaders, have lined up on both sides of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, and a recently released statewide poll shows Mainers are split on the subject.

The poll, released on Tuesday, said 43.3 percent of Mainers support gay marriage, 49.5 percent oppose it and 3.3 percent aren’t sure. The Pan Atlantic SMS Group of Portland poll surveyed about 400 Mainers between April 6 and April 14.

Though the U.S. Constitution calls specifically for the separation of church and state, there’s no denying that when it comes to marriage, the line between what’s civil and what’s religious sometimes gets a little blurry.

“Marriage as an institution existed before government and the state of Maine,” said Monsignor Marc Caron of the Prince of Peace Catholic Parish in Lewiston.

“For the good of society, the state needs to regulate marriage, but the state of Maine is overreaching its authority if it turns it into something else than it has been,” Caron said. “It’s really an abuse of power by the state.”

Caron said he was concerned about the overall decline in the number of married couples in the state and that the issue of same-sex marriage has been raised as a possibility is a sign that the institution is weakening.

“We’ve lost the sense that marriage exists for the procreation and rearing of children,” he said.

The Rev. Brian Church of the South Lewiston Baptist Church said he teaches to parishioners a literal interpretation of the Bible, which he says is the foundation of Maine’s marriage law defining it as between one man and one woman.

“Truth is truth, when God says it,” Church said. “Whatever the issue would be, marriage, gambling or whatever, it’s not whether I think it’s right or wrong, it’s what’s in the book. Separation of church and state would be one thing, but how do you separate truth and morality from the foundation of humanity?”

Other religious leaders disagree.

“I’m looking forward to equality in the state of Maine,” said the Rev. Casey Collins of the Lewiston United Methodist Church.

In written testimony prepared for the hearing, Collins took on the claim that marriage exists solely for procreation.

“If we were to go along with the idea, we should forbid heterosexual women past menopause to marry,” wrote Collins. “If the Bible is taken word for word as it is written, adultery would be punished by death by stoning as would a woman getting married who is not a virgin. No one to my knowledge has recently been stoned to death for adulterous acts.”

For Sen. John Nutting, D-Leeds, an elder in his Presbyterian church who pledged support for the same-sex bill, the past few months have been eye-opening.

“Some of my constituent phone calls lead me to question whether or not we’re free to practice religion in Maine in 2009,” Nutting said. “Some didn’t agree with my religious views and thought if I was religious, I shouldn’t support this.”

Nutting said he believes God’s love is for everyone, but he respects the right of religious groups to decide who they marry.

He also said he wouldn’t have supported the bill if it didn’t contain language reaffirming that individual religions still would decide who their churches marry.

“A person authorized to join persons in marriage and who fails or refuses to join persons in marriage is not subject to any fine or other penalty for such failure or refusal,” according to the bill.

The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a work session on the bill on April 28.