Add The New York Post on Google A Maine mom has been ordered by the state’s top court not to take her daughter to church after the child’s dad objected.
Emily Bickford appeared in Maine’s highest court on Tuesday to challenge a December 2024 custody order prohibiting her from bringing her daughter to her evangelical church, WMTW reported.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled a Portland District Court judge was correct to give the then-11-year-old’s father, Matthew Bradeen, the power to decide whether his daughter could attend the Calvary Chapel in Westbrook, ME, the Maine Monitor reported.
Bradeen argued the church was a “dangerous and harmful environment” that had caused his daughter to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks after hearing the pastor’s teaching about the rapture, a belief that good Christians will ascend to heaven at the end of the world, leaving nonbelievers behind.
Bickford’s attorneys, led by Mat Staver of Christian nonprofit Liberty Counsel, argued that the initial decision violated the mom’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The case was previously argued before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in November 2025, and the same court affirmed the ruling on Tuesday.
The court rejected Bickford’s claims that the 2024 order was hostile to her religion by referring to it as a “cult” in its published opinion.
“The court found that the child was harmed by Bickford’s decisions to expose the child to messages that characterized Bradeen as an ‘enemy’ who seeks to ‘persecute’ the child and her faith, and by Bickford’s unwillingness to prevent the child from receiving those messages or to take any other steps to reduce the risk of alienating her from Bradeen,” read the opinion.
“The court’s finding reflected simply that it is harmful for a child to hear negative and frightening messages about one parent from the other parent or the other parent’s authority figures,” the opinion concluded.
Liberty Counsel said it will now ask the US Supreme Court to take up the case following the decision by Maine’s highest court.
“A Christian mom in Maine has been prohibited from taking her 13-year-old daughter to church or even read the Bible to her for nearly two years — not even for an Easter or Christmas service or a Bible study,” Liberty Counsel said in a statement on X.
“We are fighting for Emily’s right to raise her daughter in accordance with her Christian beliefs and will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take this case and OVERRULE this decision,” the group’s statement continued.
“Depriving one parent their right to instill their religious views into their child and granting sole authority to the other parent fails to give proper protection to parental rights and religious freedom under the First Amendment,” said Liberty Counsel founder and chairman, Mat Staver. “The implications of this opinion pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”
