Tuesday Afternoon, May 17, 2022
UPDATE ON BIBLE VERSE DOG TAGS:
FIRST LIBERTY FILES FOR INJUNCTION TO
ALLOW CHRISTIAN JEWELRY CO. TO FLOUT
REGS THAT MRFF GOT DoD TO UPHOLD


Back in 2019, MRFF had a major victory in getting the Department of Defense (DoD) to follow its own regulations
and disallow the use of official trademarked DoD emblems
— which are strictly prohibited from being used on items
promoting religion — on Christian jewelry company
Shields of Strength's Bible verse dog tags.

In December 2021, fundamentalist Christian legal organization
First Liberty Institute, which is representing Shields of Strength,
filed a federal lawsuit against the DoD, claiming that
the DoD’s regulations are unconstitutional!

Now, First Liberty has filed a request for a preliminary injunction seeking to stop the DoD from enforcing its trademark and
licensing regulations while the case is being heard.
Several sets of dog tags lying on wood background
(The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense visual information
does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.)
MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein's
statement on First Liberty's indefensible defense of Christian jewelry company Shields of Strength's regulation-violating Bible verse dog tags

Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Mikey Weinstein
When the DoD military branches complied with MRFF’s official demands that it force Shields of Strength to cease and desist from its obviously illicit use of DoD branch logos to act as a force multiplier for its blatant Christian proselytizing, Shields of Strength screamed like stuck pigs about it. And, naturally, the obediently obsequious First Liberty cabal of opportunistic slime-balls couldn’t wait to grab headlines by filing their groundless lawsuit.

First Liberty’s latest dishonorable move in its fundamentalist Christian nationalistic defense of Shields of Strength’s Bible verse dog tags is as pathetically baseless in actual law as it is utterly bereft of any semblance of morality, empathy, and ethically for anyone who does not share their unbridled zeal for weaponized Christian supremacy, exeptionalism, exclusivity, and triumphalism. 

Let’s just cut to the bottom line here. Plain and simply, First Liberty seeks to obliterate all separation of church and state in the American military. Thus, they spuriously and speciously resort to suing the DoD, claiming that pertinent DoD regulations which quite properly and constitutionally separate the U.S. military from sectarian religion are unconstitutional. The DoD’s well-established regulations, directives, and instructions are NOT unconstitutional. Indeed, DoD’s regulatory structure just inconveniently interferes with giving First Liberty client Shields of Strength’s Christian proselytizing “ministry” the official sanction and literal stamp of approval of the DoD.
Written in 2020 in rebuttal of a highly deceptive op-ed by
First Liberty Institute's Mikey Berry about Shields of Strength's
regulation-violating Bible verse dog tags

MRFF'S REBUTTAL OP-ED TO FIRST LIBERTY
ON MILITARY TIMES

The real reason the Marine Corps is disallowing Shields of Strength’s Bible verse dog tags

By: MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda

Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Chris Rodda
This is in response to Sunday’s commentary by First Liberty Institute’s Mike Berry, who deceptively omits that the real issue with these Bible verse dog tags is that they have the official trademarked Marine Corps emblem on them, in violation of military trademark regulations.

Nobody is stopping Mr. Berry’s client’s company from making Bible verse dog tags or stopping Marines from wearing them — they just can’t be officially licensed by the Marine Corps and have the trademarked Marine Corps emblem on them.

Almost six months after the Marine Corps contacted Christian jewelry company Shields of Strength informing them that they could not use the official Marine Corps emblem on their Bible verse dog tags, First Liberty Institute, a fundamentalist Christian legal organization, has sent a letter to the Marine Corps Trademark and Licensing Office decrying this decision as unconstitutional.

Shields of Strength’s violations of military trademark and licensing regulations were reported to the various branches of the military last July by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and the Department of the Navy, which the Marine Corps comes under, quickly notified Shields of Strength that it could not use the official USMC emblem on its Bible verse dog tags. At that time, Shields of Strength removed its Navy and Marines products that had the official emblems on them, but continued, and continues, to sell its Air Force and Army Bible verse dog tags with the official emblems of those branches despite receiving a letter from the Army telling them to cease doing so.

The Department of Defense trademark and licensing regulations are clear: you can’t use official military emblems on items that promote religion.

These are the restrictions, according to Department of Defense Instruction 5535.12, “DoD Branding and Trademark Licensing Program Implementation,” Section 2.d. of which states (emphasis added):

“In accordance with subpart 2635.702 of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations (Reference (i)), DoD marks may not be licensed for use in a manner that creates a perception of DoD endorsement of any non-federal entity or its products and services. DoD marks may not be licensed for any purpose intended to promote ideological movements, sociopolitical change, religious beliefs (including non-belief), specific interpretations of morality, or legislative/statutory change. ...”

[…]

In its press release regarding the Marine Bible verse dog tags, and also in its letter to the Marine Corps, First Liberty Institute boo-hoos about Shields of Strength not being to fill an order for 2,000 of its dog tags for a Marine Corps unit. But nobody is stopping Shields of Strength from making dog tags with Bible verses on them for these Marines — they just can’t have the official trademarked emblem of the USMC on them. So, back to the question that I asked last month in a piece I wrote about the Army’s disallowing of the use of its logos on these dog tags: Do Bible verses lose their meaning if they don’t have government endorsement?

[…]
BACKGROUND
MRFF's Inbox
“THANK YOU!”

Good morning Mikey Weinstein and the MRFF Team,

I hope this email finds you all well. I apologize for the lateness of this email. As you know, I am an active duty female Army officer in the United States military. I really wanted to think on it and respond back accordingly. I want to say thank you thank you thank you for your help regarding my situation of religious/racial oppression! I couldn’t have asked for anybody better. I am super grateful to (senior U.S. military officer’s name withheld) for having recommended you. You and your team worked 25/8 around-the-clock, responded expeditiously, and sincerely showed that you cared to help. I was hesitant to reach out to you back in January 2022. So I took some time to think about it and I am glad I reached back out to you and asked for the much needed help from you and the MRFF civil rights advocacy team! If it was not for your team and your willingness to help I don’t know where I would be. I can’t thank you enough for your help. My heart hurts for the past Soldiers and Americans in our military branches who have experienced similar, if not worse, situations and had nowhere to turn or nowhere to seek help. It’s 2022 and unfortunately people of color, who are often not the majority religious faith of Christianity, still go through these trials and tribulations in our U.S. armed forces, which is precisely why the MRFF is so needed and so critical to our nation’s national security. I can’t thank you enough!

-1LT X
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