HELENA - The agricultural extension agent from Liberty County is accused of using his public office as a pulpit for politics, and his bosses at Montana State University-Bozeman say one of John Maatta's recent newspaper columns, which mentions both gardening tips and gay marriage, goes too far.

Maatta, the lone extension agent for this Hi-Line county, has been repeatedly reprimanded by his superiors at MSU for blurring personal and professional remarks in a column he has long-written for the Liberty County Times weekly newspaper, university officials said Monday.

But a September 2003 column in which Maatta wrote about gay marriage prompted the university to ask him to apologize for inappropriate use of his public office, said Cathy Conover, university spokeswoman.

Maatta, however, said his employer's institutional tolerance of gays gives him reason to publicly comment on the social issue. Maatta said a video that MSU recently sent to county agents urging "tolerance" prompted his September article.

"That fired me up," Maatta said in a phone interview Monday.

University officials said the video promoted tolerance of all people. Maatta said the video promoted the "homosexual agenda."

But his days writing columns as the Liberty County extension agent are over. While refusing to apologize, Maatta recast his column as personal and said he no longer identifies himself as the county extension agent when writing this personal column, titled "Whittlings."

Maatta continues to work as Liberty County's extension agent, drawing a $47,915 annual salary as well as a benefits package funded jointly by Liberty County and MSU.

The September column that ended Maatta's 14-year tenure as the county extension columnist began with his musings on the U.S. Patriot Act and the "successful run the homosexual agenda" this past summer: "From the U.S. Supreme Court throwing out sodomy laws, to Ontario, Canada recognizing gay marriage - decisions have been going the gay way," he wrote.

Maatta went on to write about President Bush's presumed support for a constitutional amendment that would legally define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. He then transitioned into another, smaller passage about K-12 public education and then, at the end of the column, wrote about ripening gardens.

While Maatta shares the political views of many of his Hi-Line neighbors, some locals, his bosses and the Montana Human Rights Network are alarmed that his columns contain political content at all.

"Public servants should not use their legitimacy in a community to promote this kind of narrow and bigoted agenda," said Christine Kaufmann, Democratic state representative from Helena and co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network. "I'm not sure they should use it to promote any social agenda."

While the network sent a letter to MSU detailing their outrage, locals are also upset by Maatta's writing.

"It's a little different than someone writing a letter to the editor," said the Rev. Waveland King, minister of the United Methodist Church in Chester, population 800. "If he were merely sending a letter to the editor, I wouldn't have an issue on it."

In addition to asking for a public apology, university officials also told Maatta they wanted to preview his columns before he sent them to print, Conover said.

And that's when Maatta changed his column from the professional to the personal.

"I don't have anything to apologize for," said Maatta. "I am no longer having an extension column in the county because of this. No longer is extension being referred to in my columns

But in his first personal column, Maatta explained the new nature of his column, went on to write about fall yard and garden maintenance and then urged readers to call him at his extension office.

Conover said the university will use its news clipping service to monitor the content of Maatta's writings. She said he cannot use his personal column to disseminate information from his day job.

"You can call it what you will," Conover said. "But if you write a personal column, it has to be strictly personal."