ACLJ Is Still Questioning the Decision by the Marines To Ban Verses on Military Dog Tags That Include Service Logos

In February 2020, we told you about the reported United States Marine Corps (“USMC”) decision to pull the license of Shields of Strength (“SoS”) in response to one radical organization’s erroneous complaint. The anti-Christian organization demanded that the USMC “immediately revoke and cancel the current approval for ‘Shields of Strength’ to continue using the official USMC emblem on any and/or all of its religious items for sale.”

We decided to submit a FOIA request to the USMC to get answers. As we pointed out in our initial update, SoS is an organization worth fighting for as it supports our troops in a powerful way.

We explained that, if the USMC approved the sale of SoS religious products that include the official USMC emblem and also approved the sale of SoS non-religious products that include the USMC emblem, then there is not a First Amendment problem. However, in this context, if the USMC were to prohibit the sale of SoS religious products that include the USMC emblem, while permitting the sale of non-religious products with the USMC emblem, the USMC would be in violation of the First Amendment by denigrating religious expression in favor of non-religious expression.

As it turns out, the USMC still does not seem to correctly understand the way in which the First Amendment applies in this context. In response to our FOIA request, we just received several pages of documents that raise more questions than answers.

For example, one July 2011 email included in a July 11, 2019, letter sent from the USMC Trademark Counsel to Mr. Vaughan stated the following: “As per our conversation I’ve gone ahead and closed the Shields of Strength USMC License Agreement file we have on your company as we do not feel comfortable licensing religious materials at this time due to the possible appearance of endorsement of a particular religion.”

The July 11, 2019, letter also referenced a May 15, 2017, conversation which said: “These [Shields of Strength] items will need to be stand-alone items, per the non-religious policy.”

In fact, this July 11, 2019, letter called for SoS to “immediately cease and desist any and all sales and/or shipments in process of USMC-branded merchandise bearing religious imagery, content and other references.”

As if the USMC position was not already obvious, in a January 26, 2018, email, an unknown USMC official, whose name was redacted, boldly and bluntly declared: “So that you and I are clear (and I suspect we already are), we’re trying to remove USMC products bearing religious marks from the marketplace. At present we still have several licensees selling off existing inventory, United Castings among them.”

Another email said this: “February 2018, we discovered religious merch on Amazon and [redacted] to take it down, which took place.” Interestingly, the same email mentioned that SoS was granted a new license in 2018.

And on July 16, 2019, Mr. Vaughan was told via email that, “We don’t license religious products per DoD policy.” Mr. Vaughan was even scolded in another July 16, 2019, email which stated: “We’ve asked you repeatedly to NOT use USMC trademarks on religious items, as it is forbidden by DOD policy for us to allow you to do so.”

We will continue to press the USMC for more details and especially the policies against religion that were referenced in these email exchanges. We will also continue to keep you posted as we consider whether the USMC is in fact denigrating religious expression in favor of non-religious expression. If the USMC is doing so, then it is clearly violating the First Amendment.