A Maine mother’s fight over her ability to take her daughter to church is headed toward the U.S. Supreme Court after Maine’s highest court unanimously upheld a custody order giving the child’s father final authority over her religious activities.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday against Emily Bickford, affirming a Cumberland County District Court order that granted Matthew Bradeen decision-making authority over whether their daughter may attend Calvary Chapel of Greater Portland or participate in other religious activities.
Bickford, represented in part by the religious liberty organization Liberty Counsel, argued that the order violates her constitutional rights to religious exercise and to direct the upbringing of her child.
Liberty Counsel announced shortly after the ruling that it will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
“This opinion rejects the First Amendment right of a fit parent to raise her child consistent with her Christian faith,” Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver said following the decision.
“We will ask the High Court to take this case and overrule the decision,” Staver said.
The dispute dates back several years and centers on disagreements between Bickford and Bradeen over the religious upbringing of their daughter, who is now 13.
Bickford began attending Calvary Chapel in 2021 and brought her daughter to the evangelical Christian church.
Bradeen later went to court seeking greater control over religious decisions involving the child, arguing that certain experiences associated with the church caused his daughter significant emotional distress.
According to court records and testimony, the girl experienced anxiety after exposure to religious teachings that included discussions of the rapture, eternal punishment and other biblical subjects.
The lower court ultimately granted Bradeen final decision-making authority over whether the child could attend activities associated with Calvary Chapel and, more broadly, over certain aspects of her religious participation.
Bickford appealed.
Her attorneys argued before Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court that the order impermissibly allowed a court to evaluate Christian beliefs and determine whether those beliefs were psychologically harmful.
In appellate briefs, Bickford’s attorneys argued that the dispute raised fundamental First Amendment questions involving both religious freedom and parental rights.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court disagreed.
Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill, writing for the unanimous court, concluded that the lower court’s decision was based primarily on the child’s best interests and the parents’ inability to jointly make decisions involving religion, not on a judicial determination that Christianity itself was harmful.
The court said the evidence showed concern about the child receiving messages portraying her father as an enemy of her faith or someone persecuting her religious beliefs.
“Far from” declaring Christianity psychologically harmful, the court said, the lower court concluded that exposing a child to frightening or negative messages involving the other parent could cause harm.
The Supreme Judicial Court also affirmed the lower court’s allocation of medical decision-making authority to Bradeen.
The decision leaves Bradeen with the ultimate authority to determine whether his daughter attends Calvary Chapel and other religious activities when the parents cannot agree.
Liberty Counsel portrays the order much more broadly.
The organization says Bickford has effectively been prevented from taking her daughter to any church, Bible study, Christmas or Easter service, or other religious event because Bradeen has declined to approve her requests.
Liberty Counsel also argues the order permits Bradeen to control the child’s exposure to religious literature and biblical instruction.
Bradeen’s attorney, Michelle King, defended the ruling, telling the Portland Press Herald that the decision was well reasoned and properly recognized the family court’s obligation to consider the child’s welfare.
King said the possibility that Bickford would attempt to take the case to the nation’s highest court had been anticipated.
That fight is now coming.
Liberty Counsel says it will file a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Maine ruling, arguing that the case presents broader constitutional questions about how far family courts may go when parental rights, religious exercise and the best interests of a child collide.
The Supreme Court is not required to hear the case. At least four justices would ultimately have to agree to grant review.
But if the justices take the case, what began as a bitter Maine custody dispute could become a significant national test of the constitutional limits courts face when deciding which parent controls a child’s religious upbringing.
For Bickford, Tuesday’s Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruling represented the end of the road in Maine.
Her attorneys now intend to take the fight to Washington.
I think that SCOTUS will take this — and I’m not sure what they will do with it.