OPINION:
For nearly four years, our First Amendment right to the free exercise of our religious faith have been under withering attack from the Biden administration. President-elect Donald Trump is poised to reverse that record with his reelection and bring serious reform to Washington.
From the corporate media elite to the vast statist bureaucracy, the deep state is nervous about what’s coming.
The departments of Justice and Defense in particular will have some explaining to do about how they’ve undermined our first freedom when Mr. Trump returns to the White House. For starters, who wants to be Alex Haas, who runs federal programs at the Department of Justice, when he has to explain to the new president and the next attorney general why his team fought Navy SEALs who wanted to continue to serve their country while having a religious objection to the vaccine mandate and lost?
And why does his team continue to fight a postal worker who has a religious objection to making deliveries for Amazon on Sundays even though DOJ lost at the Supreme Court 9-0?
Finally, why is his team fighting to keep a small Texas company from making replica dog tags for service members bearing Bible verses?
The company, Shields of Strength, was made famous by President George W. Bush {insert video} when he proudly wore a Shields of Strength dog tag in honor of a fallen hero in 2003. Shields of Strength has been distributing millions of military-themed dog tags with inspirational Bible verses for decades. It has also shipped hundreds of thousands of free dog tags to our service members overseas, proving an inspiration to our military men and women.
Even Lloyd Austin, the secretary of defense under President Biden, requested thousands of Shields of Strength dog tags for the 3rd Infantry Division and the 10th Mountain Division of the Army while he was commanding troops fighting the war on terrorism.
This all changed when a group of anti-religion zealots complained because the Department of Defense allowed Shields of Strength to put Bible verses on dog tags with military emblems. Phil Greene, another Defense Department attorney, and others at the department were no longer interested in allowing Shields of Strength to send dog tags to our troops overseas with Marine Corps, Army, Navy or Air Force markings and Bible verses. They just gave in to anti-religion zealots and told Shields of Strength that it could no longer include Bible verses because it allegedly violated Defense Department trademarks.
To make matters worse, when Shields of Strength sued the Defense Department and the service branches for religious discrimination and other claims, the DOD countersued, seeking to destroy Shields of Strength as a company. All those free dog tags the troops wanted — and were requested by one of the military’s highest-ranking generals and lauded by Mr. Bush — were no longer wanted by those now running the Pentagon and DOJ.
We successfully defeated the Navy when it tried to destroy the careers of 35 Navy SEALs and special warfare officers who had a religious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine because the Navy considered them unhealthy — a laughable argument. But justice continues to evade Shields of Strength, whose only crime was to serve our troops for more than two decades by shipping them free dog tags with inspirational Bible verses at the request of the troops on the battlefield.
But justice continues to evade the company, whose only crime was to serve our troops for more than two decades by shipping them free dog tags with inspirational Bible verses at the request of the troops.
There is little doubt that many things need to be fixed at the Department of Justice and Department of Defense. As Mr. Trump’s team has pointed out, the Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit. Many have grown frustrated with the lawfare DOJ has waged in the name of politics. But I am hopeful that the new secretary of defense and the new attorney general will put these other important legal matters on the to-do list to address these injustices.
It is time for someone to stand up to the bureaucrats at Justice and Defense and stand for the real heroes these bureaucrats seek to eradicate. There is a new sheriff in town, and his name is President-elect Donald Trump.
• Hiram Sasser is executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all. First Liberty represents Shields of Strength. Read more at FirstLiberty.org.
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