Are the commas necessary?

Contrary Tang to my usu assertion, I'd use 'em, they seem commonplace. Over here however we might "...ion,"...

Con, help

The standard is to include them. In that regard, the writer needs a comma after "are."

First, regarding the slogan, “Doing our best to spread XYZ religion”, the key words are “Doing our best.”

Is this a series? First, Second, etc.?

If so, keep the first ,.

If not, you could drop it.

BTW - The punctuation belongs INSIDE the " quote marks . . . . religion,"

Yes, a comma after are is needed.

Tangutlay is following British conventions.

The only comma I would keep is the one after "religion".

Thanks Infra; so I'm not losing it after all
...much

Yea Blue, mebbe

I once got in a lot of trouble (with one member only) about this. The British practice regarding placement of punctuation inside or outside quotation marks is often called, by people interested in such things, "logical placement", and the US practice of always placing them inside, "conventional placement".

I mentioned this, making it clear it was specialist terminology and not a value judgement (mine or anybody else's). Despite this, the other member got irate and said I was accusing (all) Americans of being "illogical", that "we" hadn't fought King George in order to be told what to write by pantywaist Limey faggots, who hadn't got an empire anymore, whose asses got saved in World War 2, etc, etc. Nothing I could write would satisfy this person. (Now there's a surprise!)

Anyhow, I believe the American conventional rule was mainly enforced and perpetuated by typesetters. I have been interested to read recently that a "punctuation paradigm shift" is occurring. In copy-editor-free zones—the Web and emails, student papers, business memos, with increasing frequency, commas and periods find themselves on the outside of quotation marks, looking in.

Not only these, but also Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America, for instance, has adopted the British way. * The first item under "Punctuation" in its Style Sheet says:

Also the logical style is used in Wikipedia.

Thanks, everybody.