Michael Heath, the inflammatory executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, announced his resignation this week. The league, which changed its name to the Maine Family Policy Center last year, said Heath was “moving on.”

With a vote just weeks away on same-sex marriage, a signature issue for Heath and the center, his departure seems shocking. Yet so has been his silence during this campaign, when it was expected — perhaps even ordained — that he would lead the crusade to repeal Maine’s marriage law.

He does, after all, take credit for the rejections of equal rights legislation (prior to its 2005 approval by voters). Repealing same-sex marriage, then, would have arguably been Heath’s crescendo, a glorious fulfillment of the fire-and-brimstone rhetoric he’s spewed over the years. Instead, he’s gone.What gives?

Nothing. Everyone else gave out on Heath.

He was, in this marriage campaign, a man without a country. Pro-gay marriage forces must have been eagerly awaiting Heath’s salvos, since whenever he opened his mouth, headlines and campaign donations to whomever opposed him would follow. He was, as the league said in its release about his resignation, “no stranger to controversy” and a “lightning rod.”

Because of this, the anti-gay marriage campaign shrunk from him. Heath has played a minor, limited, perfunctory role so far, if any at all. A few op-eds in newspapers have appeared, a few blog posts and that’s it. Otherwise, his voice has been remarkably absent, especially since it took far less than the heat of a political campaign to draw his thunder in the past. He was a liability.

Only he’s to blame. Under Heath, the league took many positions that were not extraordinary. Its opposition to casino gaming, for example, parallels Maine voters and policymakers. But on equal rights and sexuality, Heath couldn’t resist baring his fangs.

He is, after all, the same person who equated the equal rights movement with Nazi-like evil. And openly asked for gossip about the sexual proclivities of Maine lawmakers. And said the tolerance of relationships except for traditional marriage is evidence of the decline of Western civilization and the embrace of a “tribal” society.

For that, he’s been marginalized, on the very eve of Maine voting on same-sex marriage, which he has called, with grandiosity, the “Holy Grail of the gay rights movement.”

His departure makes this a quieter campaign. It’s also an opportunity for Maine’s religious right to undergo an awakening. For years, Heath shaped perceptions of social conservatives, which has weakened their influence and emboldened their critics.

Zealotry triumphed over reason, and important messages about morals, social justice and values have been unheard, or unsaid, because of all the shouting. There is a place for them at the table, however.

What’s been made clear is there’s no longer a place for Michael Heath.

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