Members of Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign staff have taken a number of fringe positions, including campaigning against LGBT rights, supporting the elimination of public schools and characterizing Mormons as non-Christians.

Democracy in Action tracks the campaign organization for presidential candidates and reveals a formidable number of campaign surrogates and field directors in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire.

Sheri Few is Bachmann’s campaign director in South Carolina, and she’s no stranger to running for office; she’s tried three times for the South Carolina General Assembly. In 2008, her campaign literature said, “God has been preparing her to become a public servant for as long as she can remember.” That echoes Bachmann’s own assertions that God told her to run for Congress.

The Columbia Free Times reported in late August that Sheri Few runs an anti-gay, abstinence-only until marriage organization that took in $2.2 million in federal funds between 2005 and 2007.

That organization, South Carolina Parents Involved in Education (SCPIE), has been a very controversial one. It opposes Gay-Straight Alliances, safe-schools efforts and diversity training in schools. “The influence of homosexual activists within the nation’s educational system continues to grow, altering the attitudes of children and teens toward the acceptance of a unhealthy lifestyle,” the group wrote in 2008.

Few wrote in 2008, “I, for one, am glad that our state legislature has already safeguarded our children from the discussion of a lifestyle that is neither healthy nor normal. It is bad enough that we have to shelter our children from the borage [sic] of television shows that treats homosexuality as though it were just another choice among the smorgasbord of immoral behaviors networks portray as commonplace with no undesirable consequences.”

The group also says that evolutionary theory is a farce, has attempted to get intelligent design taught in schools and opposes vaccines for Human Papillomavirus.

But perhaps Few’s group’s biggest issue is abstinence-only until marriage. SCPIE took in $2,231,529 under the federal Community Based Abstinence Eduction Project. The group also receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from South Carolina for its abstinence programming, and has gotten money from the Institute for Youth Development through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create an abstinence toolkit.

Aside from Few’s founding of a federally-funded organization, she’s also worked as the Marriage Project Coordinator for the Palmetto Family Council, which has received federal funds for marriage programming.

Few has defended her new boss, Bachmann, in light of the candidate’s lagging poll numbers in the race.

“My opinion of the campaign is, it’s very strong and we’ll continue to gain momentum going into these debates,” she told the New York Times. “That’s a format at which Mrs. Bachmann truly shines. What we’ll see in the coming weeks will bring her back to where she was before.’’

One of Bachmann’s field directors in southeast Iowa, Emma Nemecek, came under criticism in 2007 when she was a field director for then-candidate Sam Brownback. Nemecek forwarded an email that attacked Brownback’s GOP rival for president Mitt Romney for being Mormon. The email said, in part, “Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS (Later Day Saints) church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith.”

Nemecek said at the time that forwarding the email was an honest mistake. She was reprimanded by the Brownback campaign.

But, Nemecek isn’t the only one working for Bachmann in Iowa who has had strong words about Mormons. Barbara Heki is in charge of organizing coalitions for the Bachmann campaign.

She worked with Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign in 2007 and once told the New York Times, “Mormons spend two years of their lives as missionaries, preaching an anti-Christian doctrine. I don’t want someone out there, if I can help it, who’s going to be acting on an anti-Christian faith as the basis of their decision-making.”

Heki is a member of the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators, a home-school activist group.

“Instead of looking at who’s electable, I’m looking at who’s the best person,” Heki told the Financial Times earlier this year. “From a theological perspective, biblically, God puts leaders in place and my role is to look for the most righteous leaders—to be a light by supporting them and then let God work through that.”

The Times notes that Heki opposes public schools and opposes abortion in all circumstances including cases of rape or incest.

Heki was paid by the American Family Association, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an anti-gay hate group, during the campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled that the Iowa Constitution allows for same-sex marriage. Two other current Bachmann staffers worked on same campaign, Iowa for Freedom, against marriage equality.

Drew Klein is a field organizer for Bachmann. He recently stepped down as the director of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, which is the brainchild of former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed.

Bachmann’s Iowa political director, Wes Enos, also worked for Iowa for Freedom. In a radio interview earlier this year, Enos called for the removal of the remaining justices and insinuated that they were enemies of God.

Perhaps the most controversial is Bachmann’s director of faith outreach in Iowa, Peter Waldron. Waldron was arrested in Uganda in 2006 on terrorism charges after authorities allegedly found guns and ammunition in his suburban Kampala home. Reports conflict on what exactly transpired there, but some say Waldron was attempting to collect a bounty on a militia leader, while other media reports claim he was attempting to set up a political party based on Christian values.

He’s founded of a number of organizations including Advancing American Freedom, Christians Restoring America’s Greatness (founder and president), Cities of Faith Ministries, the Contact America Group, Inc., and The Save The Family Foundation.

Waldron is a devout Christian and has worked with leaders in the Reconstructionist movement, a movement that advocates a Christian-centered government. He co-wrote a book called, “Rebuilding the Walls: A Biblical Strategy for Restoring America’s Greatness.”

He spent 37 days in Uganda prison before being released. The method of his release is also prone to conflicting reports. Waldron has insinuated that President Bush intervened on his behalf, but other media reports suggest that Ugandan officials didn’t have much of a case and lost interest in pursuing it.

He’s got a movie coming out about his ordeal in Uganda which may shed light on his side of the story, but Waldron himself has avoided any contact with the press since revelations of the terrorism charges and his connection to the Bachmann campaign were revealed in late-August. And much of his past history has been scrubbed from the internet.

He’s outlined his strategy for reaching evangelical voters. One component is prayer:

The candidate needs prayer and must develop a prayer network in each state. The prayer network secures the candidate’s position as a “legitimate” Evangelical and a member of the faith-based community. All people of faith respect prayer and its supernatural power. Everyone can pray and each person must feel a part of the candidate’s effort to receive the nomination. Prayer does not require money, fame, and position of influence or power to achieve a sense of importance.

Bachmann’s campaign released a statement praising Waldron’s efforts on behalf of the campaign. “Michele’s faith is an important part of her life and Peter did a tremendous job with our faith outreach in Iowa. We are fortunate to have him on our team and look forward to having him expanding his efforts in several states.”

Waldron is currently working in South Carolina on behalf of the campaign, according to a Facebook posting which Waldron recently took down.

He said that Palin’s comments about teaching creationism were “appropriate,” then said it’s up to local school boards to decide, then added that he personally supports creationism.

Pawlenty’s record on creationism was fairly empty until Sunday, when NBC’s Tom Brokaw pressed him on the issue. The closest he had previously come to addressing the issue was the appointment of intelligent design advocate Cheri Pierson Yecke as the state’s commissioner of education in 2003. Her support for the controversial science classroom curriculum led, in part, to the Minnesota Senate refusing to confirm her. Yecke was forced to step down in 2004.

A transcript of the Pawlenty interview is below the jump.

MR. BROKAW: Okay. In the governor’s race, she refused to be specific about her views on Creationism versus evolution. But, as I understand it, she did say that she thought that the two subjects should be taught side-by-side in public schools. Do you think that’s a good idea?

GOV. PAWLENTY: I saw her comments on it yesterday, and I thought they were appropriate, which is, you know, let’s — if there are competing theories, and they are credible, her view of it was, according to the comments in the newspaper, allow them all to be presented or allow them both to be presented so students could be exposed to both or more and have a chance to be exposed to the various theories and make up their own minds.

MR. BROKAW: In the vast scientific community, do you think that Creationism has the same weight as evolution, and at a time in American education when we are in a crisis when it comes to science, that there ought to be parallel tracks for Creationism versus evolution in the teaching?

GOV. PAWLENTY: In the scientific community, it seems like intelligent design is dismissed — not entirely, there are a lot of scientists who would make the case that it is appropriate to be taught and appropriate to be demonstrated, but in terms of the curriculum in the schools in Minnesota, we’ve taken the approach that that’s a local decision. I know Senator Palin — or Governor Palin — has said intelligent design is something that she thinks should be taught along with evolution in the schools, and I think that’s appropriate. My personal view is that’s a local decision –

MR. BROKAW: Given equal weight.

GOV. PAWLENTY: — of the local school board.

MR. BROKAW: And you would recommend it be given equal weight?

GOV. PAWLENTY: We’ve said in Minnesota, in my view, this is a local decision. Intelligent design is something that, in my view, is plausible and credible and something that I personally believe in but, more importantly, from an educational and scientific standpoint, it should be decided by local school boards at the local school district level.

While in the Minnesota House Paulsen earned high marks from the Minnesota Family Council for his yes-vote on science standards that teach students to doubt evolutionary theory. The Family Council vote required “that state-mandated science standards include an explanation of how new scientific evidence can challenge scientific theories such as evolution.” Certainly, new scientific evidence challenges thinking about how evolution works. The only challenges to the theory of evolution itself come from proponents of intelligent design and straightforward Biblical creationism (aka “creation science”).

In his home district, Senate District 42, which encompasses Eden Prairie and southern Minnetonka, Republicans are looking to change the state party platform to include intelligent design: “We support protecting educators from disciplinary action for including discussion of creation science intelligent design, and adopting science standards that acknowledge the scientific controversies pertaining to the theory of evolution.”

I asked the Paulsen campaign if he was a supporter of intelligent design and if he supported his party’s proposed platform on science curriculum. The campaign offered this response:

Curriculum decisions should be made by local school boards.  As you may know, school boards are required to appoint parents and educators to local curriculum committees.  These local curriculum committees are responsible for selecting nonsectarian curriculum and supplemental materials taught to students.  The curriculum selected must ultimately align to state academic standards adopted by the Minnesota Legislature.

I strongly believe that state legislatures and Congress should not act as `super school boards.’  School boards should have the flexibility to make education decisions and states should be responsible for holding school boards accountable for results.  Local school boards should actively engage parents in all education decisions, including local curriculum selection decisions.

Based on that response, it is unclear whether Paulsen supports his Senate district’s push for intelligent design. Also left unclear is the reasoning behind his vote in the Minnesota House to open the door for the teaching of intelligent design.

Intelligent design has been labeled pseudoscience by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In fact, the term “intelligent design” came about because court cases found the phrase “creation science” to be in violation of church and state due to its focus on one viewpoint of the origin of life — the Judeo-Christian viewpoint.

Recent polling suggests that the majority of Americans want evolution taught in the schools. An American Physical Society survey found that 53 percent of Americans support teaching evolution. However, the American public remains divided, especially when it comes to whether or not creationism or intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution. The same poll found that 27 percent favor teaching intelligent design, and 36 percent favor teaching creationism.