KIM LAWTON, correspondent: At a megachurch in Orlando, evangelical Christians gathered to pray for the nation. The meeting was organized by a group called The Response, which has been holding similar sessions in other early primary states. They say they’re praying because they are well aware of the importance of the upcoming election and of their own role in helping to choose the Republican nominee. According to exit polls, two-thirds of the GOP primary voters in South Carolina last week described themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. Forty-four percent of them voted for Newt Gingrich. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum each got 21 percent of the evangelical vote. Here in Florida, conservative Christians make up about 40 percent of likely Republican primary voters.

STEVE STRANG (CEO, Charisma Media): It is important just because there are so many of us. But we don’t all think alike. We don’t all support the same person.

LAWTON: And that division among evangelicals has been a major factor this primary season. Although one-time presumed frontrunner Romney does have some support within the evangelical community, so far many rank-and-file conservative Christians haven’t rallied around him. Some believe it’s at least in part because of Romney’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—the Mormons.

WARREN COLE SMITH (Associate Publisher, World Magazine): Mitt Romney’s Mormonism is a concern of mine because I have a concern as an evangelical Christian that I should not promote what my faith teaches is a false religion.

LAWTON: Warren Cole Smith is associate publisher of the Christian news magazine World. He wrote a blog in which he said if Romney believes what the Mormon faith teaches, he is “unfit to serve” as president.

SMITH: You could start with the doctrine of the Trinity, what theologians would call their Christology, in other words their understanding of who Christ is. And you wouldn’t have to go any farther than that to identify very quickly some differences between orthodox Biblical Christianity and Mormon theology.

LAWTON: Mormons hold several views which set them apart from Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians. Not accepting the doctrine of the Trinity, Mormons believe that Jesus and God were separate physical beings. Founder Joseph Smith taught that traditional Christianity had fallen away from the teachings of Jesus, so additional and continuing revelations, like the Book of Mormon, were needed to restore the true faith. The LDS church may hold different views from the mainstream, but Mormons are deeply offended by the suggestion that they are not “real” Christians. Joanna Brooks is senior correspondent for ReligionDispatches.org, an interfaith online magazine.

JOANNA BROOKS (Senior Correspondent, Religion Dispatches): The name of Jesus Christ is in the name of our church. So, you know, Mormons do tend to feel like we’re being profoundly misunderstood when we’re classified as not being Christian.

LAWTON: And does it matter in a presidential race?

SMITH: It is a position of such high visibility in the world that, yes, having a Mormon in that particular chair would have the effect of promoting Mormonism, of normalizing Mormonism culturally both here in the United States and around the world.

BROOKS: Mormons are actually pretty cautious about the scrutiny that might come to faith as Romney runs and if he were to win the presidency. At the same time, you know, perhaps over the course of a Romney presidency people would finally get used to the idea that Mormons are fairly normal members of American society.

LAWTON: The LDS church has not commented on Romney’s campaign because it doesn’t want to appear to be interfering in the election. However, the church has released a series of ads highlighting the variety of people who hold the Mormon faith. This primary season, Romney has avoided direct discussion of the faith issue. He has been doing a lot of outreach to evangelicals.

MITT ROMNEY: I am convinced that if we have a president who will tell the truth and live with integrity and who knows how to lead and rebuild an economy, who will then draw on the patriotism of the American people, we will be able to restore those values and keep America as it has always been, the hope of the earth.

LAWTON: In Florida, evangelical Republican Cathleen Kwas is supporting Romney largely because of his economic experience.

CATHLEEN KWAS (Evangelical Voter): I’m not electing him to be the pastor of my church or anything like that. I think he’s a moral man. I think he’s a strong husband, a good father, and I’m sure we share a lot of the same, you know, ethics and values. And you know, the Mormonism isn’t—I don’t even think about that.

LAWTON: Charisma Media CEO Steve Strong is among other evangelicals who say they are reluctant to support Romney because of his policies, not his faith.

STRANG: I have no criticism of Governor Romney personally other than the fact that you have to question how conservative he is by some of the things he did in Massachusetts. Thankfully his flip-flopping, in my opinion, was flip-flopping in the right direction. That is a factor, but for me that is more of a factor than what church he goes to.

LAWTON: If not Romney, who? In the South Carolina vote, many evangelicals appeared to accept Gingrich’s argument that he is the candidate with the best chance of winning.

NEWT GINGRICH: We must have somebody who knows what they believe, is prepared to defend what they believe, and will do what it takes to defeat Obama.

LAWTON: Evangelicals appear divided over whether Gingrich’s marital past will be a factor.

STRANG: I think Newt Gingrich’s past is a huge issue, and it isn’t so much that he could be forgiven. Forgiveness is the essence of Christianity, and we’ve all been forgiven. But it shows his character, and not once, but a couple times. I have no doubt he’s changed. No doubt. But it is troubling.

KWAS: I don’t hold Newt Gingrich’s past against him. I do believe he made mistakes in the past, and that’s not influencing me now. I think he has had a change of heart, but I just believe he’s not steady and calm, and I think he’s fairly progressive, and so the moral thing isn’t what’s going to sway my opinion.

LAWTON: Earlier this month, a group of conservative Christian leaders urged unified support for Santorum. Strang decided to join them.

STRANG: Because I want to make a statement that character is important and not think that we have to give it to somebody just because all the pundits say that they have the election wrapped up and they are the ones that can beat president Obama. I think that it is unknown.

LAWTON: But given his low standing in the polls, many evangelicals do wonder about Santorum’s electability. Susan Berdet says she wrestled a lot before finally casting her absentee ballot for Santorum.

SUSAN BERDET (Evangelical Voter): I do want someone to beat our present president. Badly. But I want it to be the right person. I just felt that Rick Santorum represented my beliefs.

LAWTON: Santorum has been urging other evangelicals to also vote their values.

RICK SANTORUM: It’s not about winning or not winning, it’s about how you want to win. Do you want to win by being just a little better, or do you want to win with a mandate?

LAWTON: Polls show that despite any misgivings in the primary, in a race between Romney and Obama the majority of evangelicals across the country would vote for Romney. But they may not be enthusiastic about it.

SMITH: The real question is will evangelicals both turn out in large numbers and be energized as volunteers and financial supporters of Mitt Romney? It doesn’t take a majority of evangelicals to stay home. It just takes a few million evangelicals to stay home or to choose to not get as actively involved in this race, to cost Mitt Romney the presidency, should he become the Republican nominee.

LAWTON: With all the decisions looming, many evangelicals say they will continue to pray for wisdom.

I’m Kim Lawton in Orlando.

BOB ABERNETHY (Host): We take a look now at the week’s top religion news and religion’s role in the general news with Kim Lawton, managing editor of this program and David Gibson, national reporter for Religion News Service who joins us from New York. David hello. Evangelical Christians in New Hampshire made up just over 20 percent of the Republicans voting there. In South Carolina, coming up, they probably will be more like 60 percent. What difference do you expect that to make?

DAVID GIBSON (National Reporter, Religion News Service): Bob, I think it’s going to make a critical difference because South Carolina is really shaping up as a make or break last stand for social conservatives. They just cannot get on board with Mitt Romney for a variety of reasons. But social conservatives, these Evangelicals, Fundamentalists also can’t decide among themselves what candidate they want to back whether it’s going to be Rick Santorum one day, or Newt Gingrich. Rick Perry just doesn’t seem to be generating anything whatsoever. But if they can’t decide and decide by Jan. 21 when the South Carolina primary happens, then they could effectively deliver the nomination to Mitt Romney. And then they’ll have to decide whether in the general election, you know, if Mitt Romney is not Mr. Right, if it’s good enough that he’s Mr. Right Now.

ABERNETHY: Kim, a lot of Evangelicals say they’re very uneasy, uncomfortable with Mormonism, with a Mormon candidate. Why is that?

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly): Well, and we should point out that there are a variety of reasons why a lot of Evangelicals haven’t backed Mitt Romney. His faith is one. A lot of them say they don’t trust him on some of their core issues like abortion. He changed his position. Or they don’t like where he stood on health care some time back. But there is the issue of his Mormon faith. Many Evangelicals don’t consider Mormons real Christians. Now that’s very offensive to members of the LDS Church who say, “We believe in Jesus is the son of God, you know, we believe Jesus is the savior, so yeah we’re real Christians.” But for some Evangelicals, the fact that Mormons don’t believe in the Trinity, they believe that God and Jesus were separate, physical beings, that’s a real difference with traditional Christianity. Mormons believe that God continued revelation in the Book of Mormon. Evangelicals and other Christians, not just Evangelicals, Catholics, mainline Protestants say this is outside the stream of traditional Christianity. So for some Evangelicals that means, “We don’t necessarily really want our president representing that.” Some Evangelicals have said, “That would legitimize a faith which we don’t agree with.”

ABERNETHY: David, is there an anti-Mormon strain within Catholicism?

GIBSON: No there really isn’t, Bob. It’s not showing up in the numbers. Mitt Romney is doing very well with the Catholic vote so far in the primaries that we have so far and he’s still polling well nationally with Catholics who just tend to be a little more moderate, I think, in their views. For them, Mitt Romney is completely acceptable. Perhaps Catholics have a kind of communal memory of the bias that they faced for so long in American culture and they don’t want to inflict that on Mormons as well. And I think that’s an irony that Kim was picking up on, that you see Evangelical bias against Mormons in the culture and perhaps in this election. Yet you see those same Evangelicals flocking to Catholic candidates like Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, who’s a convert to Catholicism.

ABERNETHY: The big news for a whole lot of people in the religious communities this week was that Supreme Court decision saying that religious organizations can hire who they want to without regard to the anti-discrimination laws. Kim, pick up on that.

LAWTON: Well, I think for a lot of religious groups a key part of that was without government interference, that the government can’t come in and second guess the decisions that they make, especially when it comes to the people who are their leaders, the people who transmit their faith or lead their worship or do religious teaching.

ABERNETHY: People who are ministers.

LAWTON: Well, that’s the term although that’s the big question, who is a minister? And the court left a little open wiggle room in that one. They didn’t give a definition, “This person is a minister.” And that’s the concern of some civil rights groups that this will be interpreted broadly so that the janitor does ministry therefore he or she is a minister. But religious groups were watching this very closely because they were very concerned about creeping government power and if the government can come in a say “Well you shouldn’t have fired that minister,” then that would, they felt that interfere with their ministry.

ABERNETHY: David do you want to follow on that?

GIBSON: Yeah because I think it’s a very important decision, a unanimous decision, a resounding rejection of the Obama administration’s argument to limit this so-called ministerial exception. And a lot of conservatives in particular are hoping this signals that their signature issue, one of them – religious freedom, will prevail throughout the coming campaign. They’re concerned that the Obama administration is trying to curtail religious freedom, that its promotion of gay rights, for example, will impinge on the conscience and the rights of religious believers who are opposed to same-sex marriage. Same goes with these Health and Human Services regulations that are pending that would mandate all insurance plans to cover contraception. That’s a real problem for Catholic and Evangelical institutions and groups in particular. And they’re hoping that this signals that the administration is going to have to back off on some of those plans and policies.

ABERNETHY: So quickly Kim, just to sum it up. Religious groups are more free now than they were before to hire and fire people according to what they believe?

LAWTON: Well, they say that they’re free under the First Amendment as they always were. They were worried about the government coming in and changing that in some way. And I think David’s right that this has been an issue for a lot of religious groups as the culture becomes more diverse and there are different points of view, how can these religious groups do their faith, exercise their beliefs in a culture that may, you know, largely differ with them? And can they hold those religious beliefs on some very controversial issues like homosexuality or, you know the role of women and how can they do that in this context and so I think they were very pleased.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. David Gibson of Religion News Services. Many thanks.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: This is the Mormon Church’s Crystal City Chapel just outside Washington, DC. There are several others in the area, but this one is unique: the 800 members who attend here are all single. Along with worshiping, they’re here for one other very important reason: to find a partner and get married.

This is Bishop Lewis Larsen, who leads a congregation of older singles aged 31 to 55.

BISHOP LEWIS LARSEN: If you were to look across the general spectrum of single adults, the trend in America is not to even marry at all but to cohabitate. That is not a trend in the Mormon Church.

SEVERSON: If there’s any doubt, talk to some of the singles here.

ADAM NILSEN: I know that God wants that for me. I know that man was not meant to be alone, nor was woman, but that we complement one another.

SEVERSON: Were you ready at 22-23 to get married?

DARLA MARBURGER: I sure think I was. I think I’ve been ready for a long time, but I haven’t been plucked from the vine yet.

BEVERLI JO DEWALT: My grandma offered to find someone to pay someone to date me, because she was fairly convinced I was not able to do that on my own.

PROFESSOR BRAD WILCOX: Mormonism is the marriage religion.

SEVERSON: Sociology professor Brad Wilcox is director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. He says the marriage rate in the US has seen a dramatic decline since the 1970s at a 14-fold increase in couples cohabiting. But among practicing Mormons, marriage is still sacred.

WILCOX: They sacralize marriage, obviously, and they view marriage as an eternal institution that exists beyond this space and time.

SEVERSON: Professor Wilcox is speaking about temple marriages, where members in good standing are sealed together for time and all eternity.

LARSEN: When you die and your spouse dies, you will be united as a husband and wife. When your children die, they will be united with you as a family and that the family unit continues on, and I know that that’s a concept that is not generally taught in the Christian world, but it’s very sacredly held concept in Mormonism.

SEVERSON: Marriage has always been a sacred principle of the Mormon Church, but it took on an added dimension when church president Thomas Monson, who is considered a modern-day prophet, expressed alarm at the church’s most recent general conference that not enough members are getting married.

PRESIDENT THOMAS MONSON: Now I have thought a lot lately about you young men who are of an age to marry, but you have not yet felt to do so. I see lovely young ladies who desire to be married and to raise families, and yet their opportunities are limited because so many young men are postponing marriage.

SEVERSON: One reason church leaders are pushing marriage so urgently is that so many young men in the mid-20s are falling away and becoming inactive, focusing on the kinds of things that occupy other young men—getting an education, a job, and having fun.

It’s important to the church and to its young men that they get married, because only married men can hold high leadership offices, and the church says only Mormons who marry can reach the highest realm in the afterlife.

Since serving a church mission, many young Mormons in the DC area have spent their time pursuing advanced degrees. Beverli Jo DeWalt has been working on a career at the State Department.

DEWALT: Most of the folks out here are people that have pursued an education, pursued a career and not with the purpose of delaying marriage, but with the idea that we want to have a full life that includes all of those things.

SPENCER WILLIAMS: I’ve been just very busy with business, and it wasn’t until about six months ago when I really decided I do want to get married.

SEVERSON: How about you, Steve, what’s your excuse?

STEVE ARCHIBALD: Well, beyond the obvious or…?

SEVERSON: Steve Archibald is 28, has a master’s in accounting.

ARCHIBALD: There’s definitely a lot of pressure to get married, but at the same time there’s not pressure to rush into any kind of decision. We can all say that we’re looking. We’re doing our best to try and find the potential “10” out there.

SEVERSON: One high church leader suggested that in looking for a mate, young Mormons like Steve should stop reaching for a “10.“

LARSEN: It’s my job as bishop is to bring a little reality on this, that what they thought they were going to marry probably never did exist. You know, people have faults. Some might be a little overweight, some might be losing their hair, and that doesn’t mean that they are not a fantastic person.

SEVERSON: This is an annual social event in Washington for single Mormons aged 31-55. Washington may not be the hub of the church, but there are between 50,000 and 70,000 members living in the area, the largest concentration East of the Mississippi. For women in their mid-30s who want to start a family, more and more are taking the initiative.

LARSEN: We are a traditional church, and you would say women don’t initiate. But I think that changes when you’re around 30. Yeah, women are much more proactive in my ward.

NILSEN: Having lived in other places I’ve seen other cultures, that women that do take a lot of the initiative.

SEVERSON: So have you had it happen to you?

NILSEN: Have I had women take the initiative with me? Yeah, absolutely.

SEVERSON: Thirty-four-year-old Beverli Jo DeWalt says she is now ready.

DEWALT: I had the opportunity to be married when I was 21—a great guy, a fantastic guy—but I didn’t feel ready, and I think had I gotten married at that point I wouldn’t have been happy.

SEVERSON: Do you think there’s a downside to getting married too young?

LARSEN: Don’t ask me, because I married in my mid-30s, so I’m kind of like my own congregation.

SEVERSON: Bishop Fonz Allen has a congregation of 21-to-30-year-old singles. He says getting married young and struggling can be a good thing.

BISHOP FONZ ALLEN: Many of us in the earlier years, we got married while we were still going to school, and we had children while we still going to school, and we look back on those times today, now when we’re older, as the best times of our life, when we were struggling. So we don’t encourage people to wait to get married.

WILCOX: Folks who get married in their teens are more likely to get divorced, and that’s true across the board. It’s true for Mormons; it’s true for secular folks. People who get married in their mid-20s are pretty safe when it comes to the risk of divorce.

SEVERSON: Nationally, the divorce rate is down, from 50 to 43 percent. Among Mormons it’s about 20 percent. Church leaders say it’s because of the strong emphasis on family—one night is set aside each week for family home evenings—and also because of the church’s teachings on chastity.

LARSEN: In our faith we don’t allow for premarital sex, and I’m sure that does happen, but it’s a rarity, and we are teaching them to hang onto their values.

SEVERSON: Twenty-six- year-old Megan Baer recently got engaged. She says she’s glad she waited.

MEGAN BAER: We have sex drives just like everybody else, so of course it’s very hard, but I love what we call the law of chastity, which is no sex before marriage and complete fidelity when you’re in marriage, and I think it’s kept me from a lot of regret and pain.

SEVERSON: Professor Wilcox says 85 percent of Americans have sex before marriage.

WILCOX: Individuals who have more sexual partners prior to marriage are more likely to get divorced compared to those who do not. It’s something about forming a bond with someone that is then broken, and the way in which that may lead to a certain distrust of the opposite sex or a certain kind of loss of faith in relationships or in romance.

SEVERSON: Another reason for the low divorce rate is that Mormons usually try to date someone of their own faith. Some we spoke with said they had dated outside the church, but it hadn’t worked out. Others are like Steve.

ARCHIBALD: I do not date non-Mormons just because we’re pretty lucky in this area. The numbers are in our favor, speaking for us guys. In our congregation alone here today will have 300 individuals, and close to 200 of them will be women.

SEVERSON: After the church service, the search for a lifelong eternal mate continues in earnest. Bishop Larsen predicts that by the end of this year, at least 20 couples in his congregation of 200 will be engaged or married.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Crystal City, Virginia.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: It was a huge surprise when the legislature of one of the most conservative states passed one of the more liberal immigration laws in the country. That legislation will most likely be preempted by federal law, but the bigger surprise was how it angered so many members of Utah’s predominate faith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons or LDS, even though it was the church that pushed through the legislation. This is Utah state senator Curt Bramble, a Republican and Mormon who helped craft the bill.

SENATOR CURT BRAMBLE: Personally I have not seen the LDS church lobby any issue harder than they’re activity on House Bill 116, the immigration legislation.

RON MORTENSEN: I jokingly said, you know, they may as well just pitched a tent in the back halls.

SEVERSON: Ron Mortensen is a career foreign service officer and a former Mormon missionary. He founded the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration and he’s not too happy with his church.

MORTENSEN: The church lobbyists had full access where normal people can’t go, in the back halls and through all the back alleyways and they were there full time this session.

SEVERSON: And the result was legislation that would allow undocumented immigrant families to continue living and working in the state, providing, among other things, they have no criminal record and pay a fine for being in the country illegally.

Originally the legislature was only going to pass an enforcement bill similar to the controversial one in Arizona until a compact of churches and the chamber of commerce asked for an additional bill with a more compassionate approach.

Critics like Representative Chris Herrod, a Republican and former missionary, say the bill was forced on the legislature.

REP. CHRIS HERROD: I’ve never in 5 years seen a bill pass in the fashion that that was passed.

SEVERSON: Because of the church?

REP. HERROD: Well, some could argue that but again that doesn’t make it right.

SEVERSON: Tim Chambless is a professor with the Hinkley Institute Of Political Science at the University of Utah.

PROFESSOR TIM CHAMBLESS: We do know that the Utah State Legislature is unique because about 91 percent of the 104 members of the Utah State Legislature self-identify as LDS.  And each member, almost each member would say they’re a good church member. They’re a member of the Republican party and their a good church member and they’re very divided on this issue.

SEVERSON: At first is was not widely known how hard the church had lobbied for the guest worker law. So why did it? The church says it was the Christian thing to do, that the bedrock moral issue is how we treat each other as children of God. Quin Monson is a political science professor at Brigham Young University.

PROFESSOR QUIN MONSON: There is an approach that the church has been supporting that allows people to square themselves with the law—it’s allowing people to live without fear, to stay with their families, to pay a fine and come out of the shadows.

SEVERSON: But in the view of the legislation’s opponents, it provides amnesty for law breakers, and goes squarely against one of the church’s 13 Articles of Faith, number 12.

MORTENSEN: It basically says we honor, obey and sustain the law of the land and that’s something that all the children learn when they’re growing up and especially the older generation. It was something that was drummed into you and that was just like one of the Ten Commandments, and so when people see people not complying with the law, that makes them nervous and raises questions.

SEVERSON: Ron Mortensen doesn’t argue with the compassion of his church, but he thinks the bigger reason for the legislation is that the church has grown far beyond U.S. borders.

MORTENSEN: In my opinion, the church has become a worldwide church and its interests now extend far beyond Utah, and it has to meet the expectations of its worldwide audience and a very large audience in Latin America.

SEVERSON: The church has over 14 million members worldwide, with more than half residing outside the United States.

MONSON: The population of Mormons in Mexico is hundreds of thousands if not over a million. There are at least a dozen temples of the church in Mexico and hundreds of chapels, so it’s a big population and it’s big all throughout Latin America.

CHAMBLESS: The church is concerned that anything that hurts its missionary effort is going to be something that maybe the church would not support.

MONSON: Utah is very cleanly connected with the church in a lot of people’s mind, outside of Utah and outside of the United States. And so if Utah is enacting some draconian restrictive immigration law, you can sort of imagine the reaction and then the blame that might be placed on the church for allowing it to happen. I can see that that might have been a motivating factor in getting involved and asking the legislature to dial it back.

MORTENSEN: There’s been pretty credible stories about withholding visas for missionaries in order to bring pressure on the church, so they’re playing in a very international arena. It’s no longer what’s necessarily good for Utah or even the United States, it’s what’s good for us worldwide.

SEVERSON: Mortensen says it might surprise some members to learn that the church sends undocumented members that live in the U.S. on stateside missions.

MORTENSEN: It’s long been the policy of the church to allow undocumented members to have temple recommends and to hold the priesthood, and it’s up to the bishops to decide if they’re worthy of that or not.

SEVERSON: Undocumented missionaries have been deported, and recently two minor church officials and their families were expelled from the country because they were here illegally. The church says it discourages members from entering any country without legal documentation.

For those who argue that a guest worker law violates federal law, others like Senator Curt Bramble, refer to a higher law, and uses the church’s harboring of runaway slaves as an example.

SENATOR BRAMBLE: During the 1860s, before the Civil War, members of the church that harbored slaves because slavery was immoral, was a violation of the law. We can talk throughout the history of mankind where laws that are on the books or laws that someone is demanding you follow result in an outcome that in and of itself is a violation of a higher law.

SEVERSON: Mortensen says the church’s view of the law may be changing because he thinks the church itself is changing.

MORTENSEN: The LDS church seems to be moving towards more of a social justice position and away from conservatism where it’s traditionally been.

SEVERSON: The pushback against the immigration law has been so public, delegates to the state Republican convention narrowly passed a resolution demanding that the law be repealed. Professor Quin Monson has done a study about how influential church endorsements can be with the membership, and he says as more members know how strongly the church feels about a guest worker provision, the tide may turn.

MONSON: When the church comes out and officially endorses a position and it’s united and the membership knows about it, then you see people shifting their position and this is even true when the issue pushes the membership in a direction that they might not otherwise want to go.

MORTENSEN: This is really a very, very divisive issue and I never have—on other issues—I never have heard people say, well, I’m going to stop paying fast offerings or I’m going to withhold some of my contributions or I’m really questioning my testimony, and I’m having people say that to me on this particular issue.

SEVERSON: Opponents say they’ll try to derail the guest worker law during the next legislative session although it seems unlikely they will succeed. For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Salt Lake City.

KIM LAWTON: The 2012 presidential campaign is kicking into gear, and potential Republican candidates are already courting religious conservatives. The newest official GOP contender is former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who announced his candidacy Thursday (June 2). Romney says his Mormon faith should not be a political issue, but it was a concern for some conservative evangelicals in the last election. In 2008, more than 40 percent of Republican primary voters were evangelicals. With that in mind, a parade of presidential hopefuls and other GOP leaders spoke to religious conservatives in Washington this week at a meeting organized by the Faith and Freedom Coalition:

JON HUNTSMAN, (Former Governor of Utah): I want to thank you for forming this Faith and Freedom Coalition, because nothing long survives without advocates, and that includes values.

LAWTON: Joining me is now Cherie Harder, president of the nonpartisan Trinity Forum. Before that, she worked in policy positions for First Lady Laura Bush and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican. Cherie, welcome.

CHERIE HARDER (President Trinity Forum): Great to be here.

LAWTON: How important are religious conservatives, and specifically evangelicals, to the whole Republican coalition?

HARDER: Well, they’re quite important. One thing I think I should mention is, of course, “evangelical” spans a whole range of ideological temperaments. I mean, within the evangelical umbrella you have everyone from Jim Wallis to Jim Dobson, Beverly LaHaye to Shane Claiborne. So that term usually applies theologically. Lately, it’s also applied politically, but I think it’s important to remember that, of course, there are people of many different political persuasions, though, who would call themselves evangelicals. But within the political spectrum, they remain important, although I think that both the agenda is broadening, and I think we should be careful not to consider them as a monolith anymore then we would consider, say, women voters as a monolith.

LAWTON: But they have tended to vote overwhelmingly Republican. I mean, at the last election we saw a little bump for Barack Obama. Twenty-six percent of evangelicals, self-identified, voted for him. That means, you know, seventy-five percent still voted Republican.

HARDER: Oh, I think there’s no doubt at all that there are certain agenda items that are going to be very important to evangelicals, many of them social and cultural agenda items. I also think though that in the election coming up you are going see some really key differences. For example, in this coming election it seems that many economic and financial issues are really at the forefront as opposed to social issues. I also think that you are going to see a broadening of the agenda. There are many evangelicals who have been very much at the forefront of humanitarian issues, of different issues related to international relations, aid to the poor, even environmental issues and creation care, so that the agenda that in the past has characterized evangelical involvement I think you can count on as broadening.

LAWTON: But where is that going then end up in terms of support for particular candidates, and especially if you are looking at the Republican spectrum? Are evangelicals sort of lining up behind anyone in particular right now?

HARDER: Well, I mean, that is the big question, and I think at this point we haven’t seen evangelicals fall squarely behind one particular candidate. I think there’s still a lot of sorting out to be done, and I don’t think one candidate has really just emerged as a frontrunner in that area. There’s a lot of qualified candidates out there. I think evangelicals are taking their time. They’re evaluating the candidate on terms of a variety of different factors. And last time around we had a few candidates that really did seem to have a strong hold on the affections of many people who would describe themselves as evangelical in terms of their voting. This time around it’s going to look different.

LAWTON: And very briefly, do you think Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, another potential candidate, also a Mormon—is that going to be an issue for evangelicals?

HARDER: You know, again, evangelicals aren’t a monolith, so on one hand anything I say is going to be a generalization. But I think generally evangelicals, like other Americans, are looking for a qualified commander-in-chief who represents their values and can be counted on to lead the nation wisely and in a strong way. They are not looking for a pastor-in-chief, and so I think most evangelicals, like most Americans, recognize that they may have theological differences at points with the man or the woman who might be president.

LAWTON: Alright. Cherie Harder, thank you very much.

HARDER: Thank you.

A senior researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life says atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Mormons stand our for their knowledge of world religions other than Christianity, while Mormons and evangelical Protestants do best on questions about the Bible and Christianity. Interview by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly associate producer for news Julie Mashack. Edited by Fabio Lomelino.
Click here to take Pew’s religious knowledge quiz.

MARY ALICE WILLIAMS, guest anchor: California’s gay marriage law remains in legal limbo. The state’s Supreme Court judges have less than two weeks to either uphold or strike down the gay marriage ban known as Proposition 8. Prop 8 passed last Election Day, in large part because Mormon churches mobilized for it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints withstood blistering criticism from outside the faith. Now resentments are festering inside the Mormon community. Lucky Severson reports.

LUCKY SEVERSON: Dr. Pam Chan is an OB/GYN and a lifelong Mormon living in San Francisco. She found herself deeply conflicted when she got the message that her church was going all out in support of Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in California.

Dr. PAM CHAN (Member, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): There would be little announcements made here and there, announcements about how we might be able to volunteer our time to, you know, go door-to-door, to hand out flyers, to stand on street corners with signs, and these little announcements, you know, I’d hear and I’d look around and wonder, “Is everyone okay with this? Does anyone besides me see a problem with this?”

Pam Chan

SEVERSON: Ron Packard is a lawyer, a former Mormon bishop and former mayor of Los Altos, California. He is now a councilman who supported Proposition 8 and says it’s extremely rare for the church to get involved in ballot issues.

RON PACKARD (Former Mormon Bishop): I think that they made an exception to their general policy of not getting involved because they have a core concern about the protection of families and the possible disintegration of families in modern society.

SEVERSON: The church’s official position is that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God, and the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan for his children. Mormons believe they are led by a modern-day prophet who receives revelations from God, and when the prophet speaks members usually follow. But with this issue Dr. Chan discovered that other active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were also strongly opposed to the church’s position on gay marriage.

Dr. CHAN: Our church is the church of Jesus Christ, first and foremost, and my understanding of the Gospel of Christ is that it’s a Gospel of love and acceptance. So it seems like a policy that’s about discrimination, which often goes hand in hand with fear and hatred, not about love and acceptance, and that for me is really troublesome.

SEVERSON: Bob Rees is a retired professor of literature at UCLA, a former Mormon bishop and a church scholar.

BOB REES (Former Mormon Bishop): In reality, this is an issue which has divided our society. It’s divided churches. It’s divided families, and some individuals are divided within themselves.

LISA FAHEY (Member, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): So during the rallies I had some signs that said “Straight and Active Mormon for Marriage Equality” because I wanted to let people know, and I got a lot of attention for that. People came up and shook my hand and hugged me and told me, “Thank you very much.”

SEVERSON: Lisa Fahey and Kim McCall are also active Mormons, also conflicted.

Ms. FAHEY: That’s my whole point for speaking out — letting other people know that you can vote “no” or you can be for gay marriage and still be an active Mormon.

Ron Packard

Mr. PACKARD: The church has a long tradition of encouraging thinking members to not be afraid to speak up — beginning with Brigham Young. He said doesn’t want blind allegiance. He wants people to pray about it, think about it, and come to their own conclusions.

SEVERSON: In the year 2000, a majority of California voters approved a proposition stating that only a marriage between a man and a woman was valid. Eight years later, the California Supreme Court ruled that the ban on gay marriage violated the state’s constitution, and that’s when the drive began to amend the constitution with Proposition 8, and that’s when church leaders sent out a letter to its members calling on them to donate their time and money to an unequivocal moral cause. Although many churches and a majority of Californian’s supported Proposition 8, Mormons were probably the most organized and donated almost half the $19 million generated for the campaign.

Mr. REES: And I think there’s no question that the church’s involvement in this was determinative. Many people were unprepared for the effectiveness of the church in doing what it does. I think the church was probably unprepared for such a strong negative response to its involvement.

SEVERSON: The church may also have been unprepared for the number of members who opposed the church’s proclamation. Members who are still active like Laura Compton, a church organist and mother of two, who operates a Web site called Mormonsformarriage.com. She says the site still gets lots of attention and in the run-up to Proposition 8 was getting thousands of hits a day.

LAURA COMPTON (Mormonsformarriage.com): The comments that we have gotten are a lot of members who say, “Thank you so much for creating this community. I felt so alone.” A lot who said, “Because you have this site, I’m able to continue going to church.” A lot of people who have called us to repentance for what we have been doing, and a lot of outside people who’ve said, “Thank you for showing us that not all Mormons, you know, want to take away our rights to marriage.”

Ms. FAHEY: It’s been really difficult to be a member of the church during this time. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that possibly I should be excommunicated, and that’s really hurt me, because I feel like I’m really a very loving, forgiving person.

Kim McCall and Lisa Fahey

Mr. REES: The most unfortunate thing for me in all of this thing that happened over Proposition 8 was the divisiveness, the acrimony. Each side began in some sense emotionally and spiritually dis-fellowshipping or excommunicating the other side.

SEVERSON: Ron Packard says the most fierce opposition has come from gay rights advocates that have rallied against the church around the nation. He’s says he on a blacklist because he supported Proposition 8.

Mr. PACKARD: There’s some people who’ve lost their jobs because they supported Proposition 8.

SEVERSON (to Mr. Packard): Really?

Mr. PACKARD: Yeah.

KIM MCCALL (Member, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): So one of the dynamics of the church over the last hundred years is to move more and more mainstream. Okay, we looked very sort of un-American. You know, Brigham Young was opposed to the Pledge of Allegiance [Editor's Note: Mr. McCall's statement about Brigham Young is in error. Brigham Young died in 1877. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892], and we looked really outside the mainstream, and there’s been a, you know, more American than thou now we’re the most patriotic people. Okay, we weren’t very monogamous. Now we’re more monogamous than everybody else. You know, we’ve got to be. You know, we’re so worried about polygamy in our history and how odd it makes us look that maybe we need to overreact.

Mr. REES: I think there is little question that a from a public relations point of view the church has suffered over its involvement in Proposition 8, and I know of people who have had second thoughts about joining the church over this issue. I know some of our missionaries have had a difficult time finding open doors and open hearts because of this.

Mr. PACKARD: A majority of the people of the United States don’t want same-sex marriages. So for the majority we may have, instead of getting a hit we get a halo. Whenever any organization gets involved in the political process, there’s going to be some who consider it a hit and others who feel that they’re a hero.

SEVERSON: Ron Packard says the church does not discriminate against gays, that his niece and some of his friends are gay, and that the church does not have a policy of denying the sacrament to homosexual members. But Lisa Fahey says there are still members who don’t understand what it means to be gay.

Laura Compton

Ms. FAHEY: I even had some friends say that they still think that homosexuality is a choice. I don’t think the church leadership feels that way but members — some members feel that way, wrongly of course.

SEVERSON: Bob Rees says as a bishop he counseled gay and lesbian members who felt they were not wanted in the church.

Mr. REES: We have congregations who are not inclusive of the homosexual members of their congregations. We have families in which brothers and sisters don’t speak to one another over these issues, and I as a Christian, I can’t understand that. It breaks my heart.

SEVERSON: Laura Compton says since Proposition 8 the church leadership has become more flexible, making it known that members can still be in good standing even if they oppose the church’s position.

Ms. COMPTON: This has not challenged my faith, no. My faith is independent of the morality or the politics of gay marriage. It’s deeper. My faith is in a Christ who loves everybody and wants everyone to come to him, and a God that loves the world no matter whether they are Mormon or Muslim or Jewish or Catholic, and wants all of us to be there and all of us to treat each other like we’re brothers and sisters and not like we’re them and us.

Mr. REES: The function of faith communities is to make a home a for us, and I think that many of our Latter-day Saint brothers and sisters feel homeless, because we haven’t created a home for them. But I see that changing. I think there is much more understanding.

SEVERSON: As other states take up the issue of gay marriage, Mormon church leaders this time around have not asked members to get involved. Meanwhile, the California Supreme Court is once again considering the constitutionality of the ban on gay marriage. Their decision is expected soon.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in San Francisco.