Strict adherence to doctrine.

Br. John wrote: It costs far more to sentence someone to death than it does to keep them in prison for life. Even Fox News, Fox News, said, "Every time a killer is sentenced to die, a school closes."

"[A] death-penalty trial costs $1 million more than one in which prosecutors seek life without parole."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/27/just-cost-death-penalty-killer-state-budgets/

To be fair, isn't a fair bit of that cost due to long-term imprisonment during the lengthy (and necessary) appeals process to ensure that the person being sent to death is actually the guilty party?

And even if it's not, even if you're right, even if we can prove 100% that the death penalty is cruel, unusual, or torturous, the key question in this thread is does that require me to agree with you to be a "real" Jedi, or are we turning into a parody of Christian churches that excommunicate homosexuals because they don't follow the doctrine closely enough? Is there a middle ground? And can we reach it?

Well your first problem with that article is that your lawyers are obviously making WAY too much money!

steamboat28 wrote: ..the key question in this thread is does that require me to agree with you to be a "real" Jedi, or are we turning into a parody of Christian churches that excommunicate homosexuals because they don't follow the doctrine closely enough? Is there a middle ground? And can we reach it?

Perhaps consider, the point in question says 'oppose', not to what extent that opposition must be. I think the point is to be genuine. In regards to the death penalty as a punishment.... I'm not sure if death itself is experienced by the dead as punishment, so perhaps even it could be interpreted as not using it as a threat to the living.... So I'm not sure what the concern is actually... if you believe in the death penalty, then to oppose it could be to ensure its correctly applied; and if you don't believe in the death penalty to oppose it could be to argue for its abolition etc.

If the question is can a member of The Order believe in the Death Penalty even though TOTJO as an organization is against it - the answer is they probably can.

Merely believing you believe in the Death Penalty as an abstraction is not executing anyone. It may be that upon examining individual cases you won't believe in it or you're unaware of the implications of the Death Penalty in actual practice.