United States Congress protects proprietary names against unauthorized use through the Federal Trademark Lanham Act of 1946, or the “Trademark law.”
The question arises, however: How does this apply when U.S. private corporations that are faith-based institutions and incorporated churches trademark the name of a religion, or faith based terminology?
This question becomes even more significant when we note that this is fast becoming a GLOBAL religious liberty issue. U.S. private corporations are currently using U.S domestic civil courts in an attempt to protect their trademarks against infringement that has occurred even beyond the borders of the United States. This is due to the broad jurisdictional language in the Lanham Act on extraterritorial issues, as the Lanham Act applies to “all commerce which may lawfully be regulated by Congress.”
What this means is that religious corporations can regulate religion by law, if they want to, and restrict freedom of speech in daily Internet communication. One of them, the General Conference Corporation of Seventh day Adventists, is even attempting to enjoin offshore website hosting companies and domain name registrars, using U.S domestic courts, for simply hosting blog, sites, forums, social media platforms, and chats that allows the general public to be educated about religious facts, philosophies or beliefs in a peaceful manner. https://archive.org/…/NewSDAMotionofCompleteCivilAnnhilation
Hopefully, dear reader, you will realize the wide latitude of authority provided to religious corporations today by this broad application of the trademark law, and the dangerous level of power this gives them over individual lives and beliefs.
Today, the Seventh day Adventist Church has received Trademark on its name from the United States Government that has allow it to control “religious observances, missionary services and publications” of other, unaffiliated minority churches and individuals.
If the SDA G.C Corporation is attempting now to restrict the freedom of expression and conscience of Creation Seventh Day Adventists and daily online communications of others, what would stop other religious corporations from following the same example, considering the potential for extraterritorial applications of the U.S Trademark law?
As the Michigan Supreme Court rightly pointed out, it is a universal proposition that as a religion grows, differences of opinion over doctrine and practice will develop and new religions will form from those differences keeping the name of their religion. [Supreme Lodge Knights of Pythias v. Improved Order Knights of Pythias, 71 N.W. 470, 471 (Mich. 1897)] Therefore, Trademark law should not be used to regulate religion; only commerce.
With Trademark law, as it is now, U.S courts are demanding minorities to kill their own souls and worship a particular type of religious institution, that is, to submit blindly to these religious authorities with threat of civil punishment (high fines, confiscation, seizure, and permanent incarceration). Blood is not being shed but souls are being oppressed and even killed as a consequence of this cruel approach.
STOP THIS NEW TYPE OF INQUISITION NOW!
Censorship costs everyone!
Next Post: The Mark, From the Caves to the Courts
