One of the ugliest elements of organized religion is the common requirement of group-think. It simply defies the reality that a creator would make everyone different, then expect their brains to function like everyone else’s on issues of life itself. So it is simply impossible to insist on 100 percent agreement on anything — including something as subjective and unmeasurable as faith and religion. How can religious leaders be so cocksure that their flocks or minions will accept their theology from the top to the bottom? As precarious as tenets are as ultimate truth, it seems foolish to try to keep a batch of far-flung people all in line.

 The best they can expect is common ground – general acceptance of core issues while allowing for skepticism on other parts. Less than that and trouble is guaranteed.

 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is trying to get Mormons to walk in lockstep to support amendments in California and Arizona, among other states, to change state constitutions that would make gay marriage out of reach legally, barring a repeal of those amendments. The instructions have gone forth for Mormons to contribute their money, time and votes to push for passage of Proposition 8 in California and Proposition 102 in Arizona.

 Now Andrew Callahan of Hastings, Neb., is informing the media, far and wide that he, a “high priest in good standing with the church” has been threatened with excommunication for his aggressive communications to Mormons to defy church leaders’ letters for them to support the California proposition to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. He quotes the church letter to “do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time.” The letter was read by church leaders at wards on June 29. Callahan’s Web site, www.signingforsomething.org invites Mormons, former Mormons and others to post letters that criticize the church’s official stance.

 Supporting the church, one e-mail says, is a vote for “LDS theocracy” and another says the church’s stance mocks Mormons’ historic teaching in free agency. Callahan says he wrote letters to “hundreds of mid-level Mormon Church officials asking them to oppose the church’s political stance.” He says church then retaliated by informing its leaders across the U.S. to disregard communications from Callahan.

 On Sept. 22, he was served a notice that the “Stake Presidency is considering formal disciplinary action in your belief, including the possibility of disfellowshipment or excommunication, because you are reported to have participated in conduct unbecoming a member of the church and have been in apostasy.” He had been scheduled for his “disciplinary council” last Friday, but the night before Callahan was informed by e-mail that the council was being postponed. It cited “the politically charged election season” as the basis for the postponement.

 Callahan isn’t stopping. He likens the church’s stance towards gays like what he perceived was they position before the 1978 revelation by President/Prophet Spencer Kimball that allowed blacks to hold leadership roles in the church, ending a position that dark-skin people had the “curse of Cain.” The second prophet, Brigham Young, was to have said in 1849, “The Lord had cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood.” “This just reminded me so much of the racial bigotry that Mormon leaders have historically been so famous for,” the Nebraskan said. “Our past leaders insisted that racial bigotry against blacks was God’s divine idea. Now current ones are promoting this same kind of bigoted nonsense about gays and lesbians.”

 It remains to be seen how effective the church will be in keeping its members in line when they vote Nov. 4. Unless they call for members to request early ballots and leaders look over their shoulders as they fill them out and seal them, Mormons may insist in using their free agency.

 Pardon the triteness of this: The Mormons are on the wrong side of history and humanity on the issues of homosexuality as well as government trying to define what marriage is and isn’t. Going after Callahan to enforce orthodoxy only draws more attention to the tenuous effort of religion to squelch progressive thought and to present itself as a legitimate force for good.

Churches are private property, and the faith community can legally take a stand on issues.

But it still can be unsettling to see large political campaign signs on church lawns proclaiming a message to motorists on a ballot issue.

 Often churches would never attempt to take such public stands lest they alienate part of their congregation who disagrees with the church’s stand or members may be offended that it has “gone political.” Leaders might even look at the risks of possibly driving off current members and potential members.

 In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws that prohibited attorneys from advertising, contending it violated lawyers First Amendment rights. Before that, advertising by lawyers was considered below the professionalism of the bar and that if barristers promoted themselves to the public, it could quickly deteriorate into deceptive advertising. So such advertising was seen to be unseemly for attorneys to engage in. Not any more.

 Now churches may be going into that territory – come what may.

 Leaders of a few area churches have taken it upon themselves to drive steel fence posts in the ground and have wired large political campaigns into place, calling for “Yes on 102!” That’s Proposition 102, the “Marriage Protection Amendment” that would change the Arizona Constitution to define marriage as limited to one man and one woman, even though there is already a 12-year statute that says that.

Last week, I dropped by the Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix to hear pro-Amendment organizers encourage 800 guest pastors to get behind the message. Alas, they barred me from the room. On the sidewalks were the large and small “Yes on 102!” signs they wanted folks to take with them to stake on their campuses or elsewhere.

 Whether the measure will win or lose, people seem unsure. I’ve seen no results of polls taken on it. I suspect the vote will be close. It can go either way. It seems an odd issue  for which to change the Arizona Constitution. I cannot support it. My columns and blogs in this issue go back almost 25 years, and I have consistently called for allowing adult human beings the freedom to choose their life companions and have the full rights of male/female couples. I last spelled that out in July when my wife and I marked our 35th wedding anniversary.

 In California, Proposition 8 seems headed for defeat, according to polls. The measure is targeted to overturn a Supreme Court ruling (4-3) to allow gay marriage. Support seems to weakening with each new poll.

Nerves are raw across this country, given the Wall Street meltdown and presidential politics. So much is at stake with who is elected to the White House on Nov. 4, and many worry and wonder what will happen next in the drama still left before the elections.

The conservative Scottsdale-based Alliance Defense Fund has taken a step to get pastors this Sunday to “exercise their First Amendment right” and encourage pastors to preach about “the moral qualifications of candidates seeking political office.” Not just the White House but at all levels of government.

With bold and gutsy bravado, ADF senior legal counsel Erik Stanley is calling on ministers to put aside any caution about potential Internal Revenue Service discipline should they break rules about what politically related statements are allowed and disallowed from the pulpit.

In a Thursday statement, Stanley said, “Pastors have a right to speak about biblical truths from the pulpit without a fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights.” To those pastors who show reluctance to speak out, he asks them to answer the question: Should the church decide that question (of freedom of speech) or should the IRS?”

The Defense Fund has launched a campaign to “secure the First Amendment rights of pastors in the pulpit.” It specifically wants to revoke the “Johnson Amendment” signed into law in 1954 that is intended to bar clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit. It doesn’t affect their right to preach on social and human issues.

Stanley said his organization is not trying to bring politics to the American pulpits, but he says, “Churches can decide for themselves that they either do or don’t want their pastors to speak about electoral candidates.” It underscores ADF’s effort to bring an end to the amendment and the IRS’ authority to threaten to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status. “We need to get the government out of the pulpit,” Stanley said, adding that such tax-free conditions are not gifts or subsidies bestowed by government.

The real reason why faith institutions were made tax-exempt was to keep government from trying to stifle them or put them out of business by taxing them, he said. “As the U.S. Supreme Court has noted, the power to tax involves the power to destroy. The real effect of the Johnson Amendment is that pastors are muzzled for fear of investigation by the IRS.” The amendment is named for President Lyndon Johnson while he was a U.S. senator from Texas.

The current ban on endorsements remains fiercely supported by groups like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State: People For The American Way, and The American Civil Liberties Union, under the argument that both religious groups and the public domain are protected from the excesses and shenanigans of the others. Some fear that mega-church pastors, with commanding influence on their flocks, can hold great sway over local elections. They fear that public issues would becomecommingled with theology to a point that we could head  toward a theocracy where stronger religious groups could change society and culture to reflect their rules and values.

There have been no shortages of cases of religion and the state behaving badly to the detriment of the other.

The term “evangelicals” conjures instant identity for some people — and absolutely nothing for others. Phoenix-based Ellison Research has found that even evangelicals don’t really know what characterizes and distinguishes them from people of other faiths.

In the news business, one of our guidebooks, produced by our Religion Newswriters Association, notes, “By definition, all Christians are evangelicals” but that it generally connotes Protestants as those who “emphasize personal conversion; evangelism; the authority, primacy – and usually – inerrancy of the Bible; and the belief that Jesus’ death reconciled God and humans.”

Ron Sellers of Ellison Research says a common perception is that “evangelicals are Christians who place a special emphasis on spreading their faith to other people.” He says “evangelical,” for some, is negative and it may bring “proselytizing” to mind. But it can also be viewed with such positive words as “spreading their faith,” “telling others about Jesus” or “evangelizing others.”

“For starters, 36 percent of all Americans say they have no idea at all what an evangelical Christian is,” he said. “They could not even hazard a guess as to what defines an evangelical.” The irony is that we in the media and politicians, especially, have made so much of evangelicals as such a major force in the U.S. In Ellison Researches findings from 1,000 adults, people were unable to show any meaningful agreement on defining the term. Just single digits define it: 9 percent “just a specific type of Christian, such as a non-denominational Christian, a born-again Christian or a Protestant Christian.” Another 9 percent said they believe evangelicals are Christians who are “particularly zealous or devoted to their faith.”

Eight percent mentioned “focus on the Bible,” 8 percent say “saved by grace” or “believe in a born again religious experience” or “believe in eternal life through Christ.” Six percent cited a “world view or politics.”

Beyond that, 56 percent of all Americans “can give any sort of substantive definition of evangelical beyond a simple ‘I don’t know’ or just criticism or invective,” Ellison Research found.

In the end, 44 percent lack any perception of what an evangelical Christian actually is.

Interesting, 11 percent of those polled called themselves evangelical Christians, but later they admitted, during questioning, they “actually have no idea just what an evangelical is.” Twenty-eight percent of people regularly attending a church considered to be part of an evangelical denomination “say they do not have any guess as to what an evangelical is.”

 Perhaps, it was 20 years ago when I volunteered  to help the Tempe Elementary School District on a community task force developing language for a sex education curriculum. It was an eye-opener for me to see the resistance that whole groups in the community had to letting the schools teach things related to human sexuality.  

What was adopted at the time was pretty limited and watered down.  I was rather ashamed of what was produced. Maybe it was progress. At least my news editing skills ensured some grammar and punctuation fixes.

For more than 15 years, I have served on a community advisory committee to Tempe Union High School District’s Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenting Program whose goal is to help pregnant teen mothers and the teen fathers remain in school to get their diplomas even while coping with pregnancies and the arrival of their babies. APPP has been effective because of the district’s commitment and because families recognize how invaluable education and diplomas are for life itself – and the unexpected children in their care.

The most heartening thing is to see those moms come back, often after college, as testaments to the critical importance of staying in school. The U.S. presidential campaign has seen teen pregnancy and abortion emerge anew as contentious issues.

No sooner did we learn that Gov. Sarah Palin, R.-Alaska, was the vice presidential choice of Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., on his GOP team than we learn that, oops, Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is with child.  ”Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that, as parents, we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned,” Sarah and Todd Palins’ statement read. “As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”   The baby is due in December. 

Throughout this week’s Republican National Convention, Bristol was demonstrating plenty of parenting skills and practice by holding her newborn brother, Trig, whom the 44-year-old governor delivered this year with Down’s syndrome.

A swirl of discussion has followed about the wisdom of pregnancy at such an age given research on the great likelihood of disabilities for babies.  A study by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that the maternal-age risks for Down Syndrome is estimated to be one in 350  when the mom is 35; one in 100 at age 40; and one in 25 for 45 and older.

The governor has said that she and her family were aware that Trig would be born with the disability and wanted to continue forward.  She vows to make special education a passionate cause if she gets to Washington, D.C.  

Palin appears to favor abstinence–only sex-education programs, and she wrote in a 2006 gubernatorial questionnaire, “The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”Some quickly point out that her family is learning first-hand that abstinence-only approaches may be flawed and ineffective.  

Kudos to those candidates who passionately answer the fierce anti-abortion forces with a national call to reduce pregnancies through responsible and thorough sex education, including information on condoms as a preventive. Moreover, adoption should become easier to ensure babies and children will have homes where they are wanted.

The best way to reduce abortion is to reduce pregnancies that are not wanted.