The parents and former couple are Emily Bickford and Matthew Bradeen, who share custody of their unnamed child, age 12.
Bickford and her daughter attend Calvary Chapel Greater Portland, an evangelical church located in Westbrook, Maine, where the child was baptized and has attended church services and church activities.
The father, however, has told the court he opposes the daughter's church attendance there. She has suffered anxiety and emotional damage from the church’s teachings, such as the biblical doctrine known as the Rapture, he claims.
A district court sided with him, stating directly Breeden has the final say about attending church, and now Maine’s highest court has backed up the lower court, too.
“In my 39 years of litigating, I've never seen an order quite like this one,” attorney Mat Staver, who represents the mother, told American Family News.
Staver and his law firm, Liberty Counsel, plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal on behalf of Bickford on the grounds her First Amendment rights are being violated.
Describing the Maine Supreme Court’s ruling, Staver said the state court “rubber-stamped” the lower court even though Bickford was recognized as a good parent who was “fit” to share custody.
“What we're talking about is exposure to the Bible, religious organizations, events, Christmas, Easter,” he said. “It’s so breathtakingly and astoundingly broad it shocks the conscience."
According to a Fox News story, which cites the lower court’s ruling, a district court judge was unhappy that Calvary Chapel itself got involved in the legal dispute. As the case was proceeding, a prayer time was held in which the church pastor repeatedly named the father, Bradeen, by name.
By attending that service, the district court claimed, the mother allowed the daughter to be exposed to messages that alienated her from her father.
Backing up that finding, the Maine Supreme Court wrote “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."
