A strong majority of the public disapproves of the Episcopal Church’s decision to recognize the blessing of same-sex unions, and a larger share of churchgoing Americans would object if their own faith adopted a similar practice, according to a new Washington Post poll.

So broad and deep is this opposition that half of all Americans who regularly attend worship services said they would leave their current church if their minister blessed gay couples — even if their denomination officially approved those ceremonies, the survey found.

“Americans are saying, ‘We’re willing to move pretty far on this issue, we’re much more tolerant than we used to be, but don’t mix it up with religion and God,'” said Boston College political scientist Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life.

Opposition to blessing gay unions is strongest among Americans who attend church weekly, The Post’s poll found. Three out of four frequent churchgoers opposed the Episcopal convention’s decision, and a similar proportion said they would object if their own faith took a similar step. But even among those who acknowledged that they rarely or never attended church, nearly six in 10 objected to blessing gay couples.

Julio Rincon, 28, an infrequent churchgoer in Albany, N.Y., said he wouldn’t mind if a gay couple registered a civil union “down at City Hall, (but) I do have a problem if it were to take place in a church.”

The poll also found, however, that public acceptance of same-sex civil unions is falling. Fewer than four in 10 — 37 percent — of all Americans say they would support a law allowing gay men and lesbians to form civil unions that would provide some of the rights and legal protections of marriage.

For The Post’s survey, 1,003 randomly selected Americans were interviewed Aug. 7-11, including 420 who said they attended services at least once a week. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall sample and 5 percentage points among frequent churchgoers.

The survey found that 60 percent of all Americans opposed last week’s decision by the Episcopal Church’s general convention to give its bishops the option of allowing the blessing of same-sex relationships in their dioceses.