(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . And then Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations by using arcane trademark laws” [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-20 The TLDR Version: Fundamentalist Christian legal organization First Liberty Institute is now attempting in federal court to make Christian jewelry company Shields of Strength owner Kenny Vaughan free to put the official trademarked Department of Defense (DoD) branch emblems on the Bible verse dog tags his company makes by claiming that the DoD “fraudulently” obtained its trademarks and that all of the DoD’s trademarks should be revoked. Seriously! But First Liberty isn’t telling its followers (a.k.a. potential donors) about this new legal strategy of transforming what was a religious liberty case into a case regarding trademark law. After a federal district court ruled late last month that the case can proceed, First Liberty posted an article on its website titled “Bible Verse Dog Tag Company, Shields of Strength, is One Step Closer to Victory,” in which these paragons of Christian virtue made no mention at all of this now being a trademark law case that will have little if any bearing on religious liberty. And First Liberty’s co-conspirators at Fox News were happy to play along, as usual, And (spoiler alert for those who are going to read this whole post), MRFF has uncovered that Bible verse dog tag maker Kenny Vaughan is no stranger to trademark infringement lawsuits. He was sued for trademark infringement back in 1996 when his coin business (which is still operating, using a different name) blatantly ripped off his former employer’s, and then competitor’s, ads, presumably to cause confusion between his former employer’s well-established business and his new similar business to steer business his way. The Background: Back in the summer of 2019, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) was made aware of a company that was selling Bible verse dog tags with the official U.S. Marine Corps emblem on them, a clear violation of Department of Defense (DoD) regulations, which strictly prohibit the use of any official DoD emblems or logos on merchandise that promotes a religious belief (or political message). There are two versions of the official DoD service branch emblems — the official Service Seals, which may only be used by the DoD and its components, and the Emblems and/or Crests, which are trademarked variations of the Service Seals that may be licensed by businesses for use on their merchandise, subject to the approval of the service branch’s Trademark Licensing office. There are also logos, such as the familiar Army star logo, which are also trademarked and require a license to use. As MRFF quickly ascertained, the company that was selling these Bible verse dog tags, Christian jewelry company Shields of Strength, did have a license from the Marine Corps — but for “inspirational dog tags” — and a quick look at the Shields of Strength website revealed that the company was also selling Bible verse dog tags with Army, Navy, and Air Force emblems and logos on them. MRFF quickly sent letters to the Trademark Licensing offices of each of the military branches, demanding that they stop Shields of Strength from putting the trademarked military emblems and logos on its Bible verse dog tags or any other religious items, as this clearly violated DoD 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….” Three of the four military branches immediately agreed with MRFF, sending cease and desist letters to Shields of Strength, ordering the company to stop putting their trademarked emblems and/or logos on its Bible verse dog tags. Enter First Liberty Institute In 2019, fundamentalist Christian legal organization First Liberty Institute, ever at the ready to champion the causes of “persecuted” Christians like Shields of Strength owner Kenny Vaughan and get them publicity — lots of publicity — took up the case. The right-wing media had a field day with this story of Christian persecution, almost all deceptively omitting that DoD regulations prohibit DoD emblems from being used on religious merchandise and either downplaying or omitting that these emblems are trademarked, leading their readers to think that the military was prohibiting service members from wearing Bible verses, which was simply not true. Nobody had told Shields of Strength that it couldn’t make and sell Bible verse dog tags or that service members couldn’t wear Bible verses. They just couldn’t have the DoD’s emblems on them. I wrote about this at the time, in a post titled “Do Bible Verses Lose Their Meaning If They Don’t Have Government Endorsement?” In January 2020, shortly after taking on Vaughan’s case, First Liberty’s Mike Berry wrote a highly deceptive op-ed published by Military Times with the headline “Anti-religion group seeks to deny troops inspirational dog tags.” There’s that word again — “inspirational” — the word they use instead of “religious” to obfuscate and downplay that these are overtly religious items. Many other right-wing Christian media outlets also used that magic word “inspirational,” such as CBN with its headline “Army Bans Faith-Based Company from Making Inspirational Dog Tags After Atheist Complaint.” The next step in these deceptively written articles about the plight of poor, persecuted Christian Kenny Vaughan, a plethora of which have been written since 2019, is that when they do say that these dog tags have Bible verses on them, they omit that the issue is that they also have official trademarked DoD emblems and logos on them. Mike Berry did this in the second paragraph of his Military Times op-ed, writing: “Our military is obligated to prepare our troops for the rigors of combat — physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. But in its latest attack on religious freedom in our military, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), actually seeks to undercut our troops’ spiritual readiness by denying them the ability to obtain replica dog tags with Bible verses inscribed on them.” It is only way down at the end of these articles that some mention is made of these being “licensed products,” but even then not saying that the issue is that they have the DoD’s official trademarked emblems on them. Instead, they are described as merely “military-themed items,” as Mike Berry called them in his Military Times op-ed. I responded to Mike Berry’s deceptive op-ed with a rebuttal op-ed on Military Times titled “The real reason the Marine Corps is disallowing Shields of Strength’s Bible verse dog tags.” The Lawsuit In 2022, Shields of Strength, represented by First Liberty, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense. The initial complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, was the standard persecuted Christian lawsuit fare, with First Liberty claiming that the “DoD’s trademark licensing policy unconstitutionally targets and discriminates against private religious speech” and that the DoD’s policy “violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) … because it places a substantial burden on religious exercise by requiring SoS to remove religious messages from its military dog tags, when creating, selling, and donating these dog tags fulfills a religious purpose of Shields and its owner,” yada, yada, yada. Fast Forward to 2024 The DoD had naturally filed a motion to dismiss Shields of Strength’s lawsuit against it but was only partially successful. The DoD then filed a second motion to dismiss, which led First Liberty to file an amended complaint, and here’s where things get very … shall we say … interesting. After four and a half years of this being a religious liberty case (at least First Liberty’s concept of religious liberty), with First Liberty’s primary claim being that the “DoD’s trademark licensing policy unconstitutionally targets and discriminates against private religious speech,” it has now been transformed into a case that has little to do with religious liberty. First Liberty, in its amended complaint, is going a different route — claiming that the DoD “fraudulently” obtained its trademarks! Yes, forget about arguing that the DoD’s policies discriminate against religious speech. Shields of Strength and First Liberty are now trying to use the 1946 Lanham Act to get all the DoD’s trademarks canceled — just so Kenny Vaughan can put them on his blasted Bible verse dog tags! On May 31, Trump-appointed United States District Judge J. Campbell Barker ruled that the case can proceed. Imagine the ramifications if First Liberty should happen to succeed. Want to print up an edition of Mein Kampf with the official emblems of the U.S. military on it? Go right ahead. Want to scam people into thinking your business or organization is officially endorsed by the military? Nothing’s stopping you from putting those official military emblems on your letterhead and website. How about a line of official military sex toys? No problem. Just stamp those military emblems on them and send a thank you letter to First Liberty Institute for protecting your freedom! Now, the issue of whether or not a government agency can trademark its emblems or logos is not a new one, going back to the 1946 Lanham Act, one of two major pieces of legislation regarding trademarks (the other being the 1905 Trademark Act), and there is a simple legislative fix if First Liberty does succeed, but that’s a subject I’ll reserve for another post. Fox News, in typical fashion, played right along with First Liberty and Kenny Vaughan, having them on Fox & Friends and publishing a story on its website that completely omits anything about First Liberty’s new legal strategy of trying to get the DoD’s trademarks canceled by claiming they were fraudulently obtained. Is it possible that Fox just wasn’t aware of what First Liberty is doing? Absolutely not. Fox News’s Kendall Tietz asked MRFF’s Mikey Weinstein for a comment for the article, and the comment Mikey gave him said, in part: “These specific regulations state that trademarked DoD insignia cannot be used on nonsecular religious items, so they have taken a different route — alleging that the DoD originally obtained the trademarks of its own insignia fraudulently (umm, seriously, folks!!). “Such patently ridiculous legal sophistry turns this litigation into a case regarding the technicalities of arcane trademark law rather than the First Amendment/Establishment Clause case that it should be.” But Fox’s Kendall Tietz, in his article, titled “Faith-based company is one step closer in legal fight to distribute dog tags with Bible verses,” just left that part out and only used another part of Mikey’s comment that fit the story First Liberty wanted him to tell. This isn’t Kenny Vaughan’s First Run-In with Trademark Trouble As noted in the “TLDR version” at the top of this post, MRFF has uncovered that Kenny Vaughan was sued for trademark infringement and other wrongful conduct back in 1996. The suit was brought by his former employer, coin company 1st National Reserve, which Vaughan left in 1993 to start his own coin business, International Currency Reserve. Among other things, Vaughan’s new coin business blatantly ripped off his former employer’s, and then competitor’s, ads, presumably to cause confusion between his former employer’s well-established business and his new similar business to steer business his way. MRFF was able to obtain some records from the lawsuit, which include a copy of one of Vaughan’s ads for his business, International Currency Reserve (which is still in business, using the name Currency and Coin), and the ad for the same items from 1st National Reserve. I think the below images of the two ads are sufficient to understand why Vaughn was sued and lost. The first image is 1st National Reserve’s ad and the second is Vaughan’s company’s almost entirely identical ad. Kenny Vaughn the Waterskiing Champion and the Founding of Shields of Strength In 2010, Kenny Vaughan published a book titled Shields of Strength: One Man’s Victory Over Fear and What it has Meant for America (how’s that for an arrogant subtitle?). The book, as you might guess, tells the story of Vaughan’s founding of Shields of Strength, which goes something like this: Vaughan started water-ski jumping at a young age and his boyhood dream was to win a medal at the National Water Ski Championships, but every time he came close to realizing this dream he blew it because he became gripped by fear. Then, in 1996, his then-girlfriend, now his wife, wrote Bible verses on the handle of his water ski rope, which got him over his fear, and despite one of his boots being broken from his previous jump, he jumped 179 feet, farther than he’d ever jumped before, won his gold medal, and, as his book says, “fulfilled his dream of being the best long-distance water-ski jumper in the nation.” (I guess that’s if you don’t count the top three jumpers in that same 1996 National Championship’s open, who jumped 198 feet, 186 feet, and 184 feet. respectively.) After his success in jumping for Jesus, Vaughan inscribed Bible verses on some dog tags for his personal use, and some people who saw them also wanted them. His brother started calling them shields of strength, and Shields of Strength was born. Vaughan’s book also goes into much detail about how his Bible verse dog tags made their way into the military, but that’s a story for another day. Conclusion In my 2019 post “Do Bible Verses Lose Their Meaning If They Don’t Have Government Endorsement?” I quoted Benjamin Franklin, who wisely said: “When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.” And, to repeat what I said in that post, if an official military endorsement is necessary for a Bible verse to be meaningful to Shields of Strength, the service members who wear their dog tags, and First Liberty Institute, then their religion, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, must be “a bad one.” MRFF will, of course, be watching closely as Shields of Strength’s lawsuit against the Department of Defense plays out and will be updating you on any significant developments. 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