Mormons all worked up over coffee t-shirts…

Posted on March 24, 2007
Filed Under Prophet's Place, Utah, current affairs, espresso, flyover country, media hysteria, religious kooks, stupid people, white trash

One of the most popular features in the original incarnation of The Prophet’s Place was our weekly “Reason to Hate Utah”. I quit doing it several years ago. For one thing, since I no longer lived in the Beehive State it was harder to work up the indignation that I once had. More significantly, however, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. I could do a dedicated site covering the hair-brained schemes and boneheaded “issues” coming out of Utah, most generated by the Mormon Church.

To paraphrase Al Pacino in the weak third Godfather movie “just when I thought I was out they pull me back in.” The national wire services have picked up a story about a suburban Salt Lake City coffee shop called “Just Add Coffee”. The Mormon Church has their special magic underwear in a wad because the shop is selling t-shirts with the picture of the Angel Moroni blowing his horn, only in this case coffee is pouring in to the other end of the horn.

The Mormon Church, like any good religious institution, is worried about protecting their trademark. They insist the Angel Moroni is trademarked:

The church informed Beazer that the angel’s image is a registered trademark.

“If they provide proof, we’re going to comply,” Beazer said. “We don’t want to break any laws or anything

I sympathize with Beazer, since you’re not going to win a game of “my lawyer is bigger than your lawyer” with the Mormon Church. I would suggest, however, that like Carol Burnett’s recent hissy fit against the producers of “The Family Guy” this is a pretty clear cut example of parody. And that means that the use of Bony Moroni falls under the guidelines of “fair use” and is constitutionally protected.

The Supreme Court of the United States stated that parody “is the use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works.”

US Code on the subject here

Mormons also had a conniption over the Wasatch Brewing Company’s “Polygamy Porter“.

Full story here