Faith-based company is one step closer in legal fight to distribute dog tags with Bible verses

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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.

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.

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