The Maine Superior Court heard arguments last week in a case involving a mother who has been barred from taking her 12-year-old daughter to church or religious organizations.Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal organization, is defending the religious freedom rights of Emily Bickford, a single mother who has had primary custody of daughter Ava since before was born. Her father, Matthew Bradeen, has had visitation rights during this time.
The trouble began when Emily and Ava began attending Calvary Chapel in Portland, Maine, in May of 2021.
“As an unbeliever, Matthew did not like Ava’s growing faith in the Lord,” explains Matt Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel in a November 25 email to the Counsel’s supporters. “The issue came to a head when Ava turned 11 and told her father that she wanted to be baptized. Infuriated that his daughter had embraced the God that Matthew refused to acknowledge, he ran to the family court to stop her from being baptized.”
Although he was unable to act fast enough to stop the baptism of Ava, Matthew’s court filings claim that Ava wore Christian T-shirts to his home, would try to talk to him about salvation, and would leave Bible verses including Christian literature around the home. He also objected to the church teaching the Bible “verse by verse, chapter by chapter,” including teaching on the Bible’s descriptions of hell, demons, and spiritual warfare.
To support his objections, Matthew hired California sociology professor, Dr. Janja Lalich, an “expert on cults,” to help convince Maine District Judge Jennifer Nofsinger to stop Ava from attending this church. Dr. Lalich told the judge that cults usually have a charismatic, authoritarian leader who teaches about a “transcendent belief system” that offers answers, and “promises some sort of salvation.”
She testified that she had “studied” Calvary Chapel Church and found that the church’s pastor was a “charismatic” speaker, spoke “authoritatively” in his messages, and that he asserted his messages were objective truth. Because of this, Dr. Lalich perceived the church to be a “cultic” organization. Despite not being a psychologist, Dr. Lalich testified it was “evident” that the church posed a potential for psychological harm to the girl.
The court sided with Matthew and issued a custody order that declares the church’s biblical teachings to be “psychologically harmful,” and granted Matthew the sole right to govern the girl’s religious activities.
He now has the authority to decide whether his daughter may attend “any services, gatherings, or events associated with Calvary Chapel”; what “material, literature, video, or other messaging associated with or created by Calvary Chapel” she reviews; and whether she can “associate or communicate with any member” of Calvary Chapel.
The order includes “any other church or religious organization, or exposure to the teachings of any religious philosophy or of the Bible in general.” The order then gives Matthew “the right to make final decisions regarding [the daughter’s] participation in other churches and religious organizations.”
Evidence of the judge’s anti-Christian bias was obvious throughout the order, Staver said.
“The judge refused to capitalize the word ‘God’. In all of my nearly 38 years of legal work, I have never seen a judge do such a thing. In fact, The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, which governs writing styles for legal pleadings in the United States, requires the word ‘God’ be capitalized. Yet, throughout her order, the judge refused to capitalize the word, thereby demeaning and mocking Emily and Ava’s faith as well as purposefully ignoring proper legal writing standards.”
Liberty Counsel is seeking a reversal of this unlawful custody order and restoration of the mother’s First Amendment right to pass on her religious beliefs to her child.
Under the U.S. Constitution, federal law, and numerous Supreme Court precedents, unmarried parents both have the right to instill their religious beliefs into their children during their respective custodial time.
In a brief to the Maine Supreme Court, Liberty Counsel asserts that the lower court impermissibly entered the “private realm of family life” and “punished” Emily for her biblical beliefs.
“Constitutionally, American courts are forbidden from interfering with religious freedoms or to take steps preferring one religion over another,” reads the brief.
The First Amendment does not allow for this blatant and overt hostility towards religious beliefs and the order cannot stand, concluded Liberty Counsel.
“Calvary Chapel is not a cult,” Staver said. “This custody order banning Emily Bickford from taking her child to a Christian church because of its biblical teachings violates the First Amendment. The breadth of this court order is breathtaking because it even prohibits contact with the Bible, religious literature, or religious philosophy. The custody order cannot prohibit Bickford from taking her daughter to church. The implications of this order pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”
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