Maine’s highest court will soon decide whether a custody judge can forbid an otherwise fit parent from letting her child read the Bible, engage in any church activities, or even spend time with youth group friends — a ruling that could have ominous implications for parental rights and religious freedom in America.
A single mother’s fundamental right to raise her child in her Christian faith is now before Maine’s highest court, and legal advocates say the outcome could have ramifications for the rest of the country.
On November 13, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments in Bickford v. Bradeen, a case in which the mother, Emily Bickford, is appealing a custody ruling that barred her from taking her 12-year-old daughter to church, reading the Bible with her, or even associating with members of the church she attends.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman for Liberty Counsel, which is representing Bickford, argued that the lower court’s order represents an unprecedented incursion on both parental rights and religious freedom. The order granted the father, Matthew Bradeen, sole authority to decide all religious and spiritual matters for the minor child, effectively giving him a veto over her Christian upbringing.
According to Staver, the decision treats mainstream Christian worship as though it were inherently harmful and raises significant constitutional concerns.
During that hearing, the district court judge, a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), concluded that Bickford’s daughter experienced “psychological harm” through her attendance at Calvary Chapel Portland, a Bible-teaching, non-denominational church.
The court relied heavily on testimony from a self-described “cult expert” who labeled the church’s teachings on spiritual warfare, fallen angels, and doctrinal certainty as “cultic” and potentially harmful. On that basis, the court awarded the father final authority over whether the child may attend services or even read the Bible during when with her mother.
Liberty Counsel argues that the court’s decision is flawed on multiple grounds. First, they note that Bickford is a fit parent who poses no danger to her child, yet the court stripped her of her right to raise her daughter according to her faith.
“This is a nuclear option,” Staver told reporters after the hearing. “You give total authority to one parent to make decisions regarding religion over the other parent who’s a fit parent.”
Second, Liberty Counsel contends that the lower court violated the Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses by treating orthodox Christian doctrine as presumptively harmful, displaying what they call unconstitutional hostility toward religion. As a result, the case also strikes at the core constitutional principle that fit parents have the primary right to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
U.S. precedent has long affirmed the authority of parents to instruct their children in morals and faith. In the landmark case Troxel v. Granville, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children “is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.”
Advocates warn that allowing a judge to grant one parent unchecked power over religious questions, where there is no abuse or neglect, sets a dangerous precedent.
The father’s lawyer argues that the church’s teachings might have contributed to the child’s anxiety and panic episodes and that the district court acted within its discretion to protect the child’s psychological welfare. The district court judge decided that images of demons, descriptions of eternal punishment, and lessons on spiritual warfare in the Church’s youth curriculum created an environment inappropriate for the child.
Critics of the ruling say the court crossed a constitutional line by making doctrinal judgments about Christianity, judgments that the First Amendment prohibits.
In its appeal, Liberty Counsel maintains that the order should be overturned because it cannot be reconciled with First Amendment jurisprudence. A court, they say, cannot infer that teaching mainstream Christian doctrine is inherently harmful nor impose a blanket ban on a parent’s right to share her faith with her child during court-ordered custodial time.
Legal scholars advising Liberty Counsel argue that the “fit parent” doctrine demands heightened scrutiny whenever the government interferes with parental decisions about child rearing. They insist that the lower court treated Christian worship as a defect or danger, committing a constitutional error rather than protecting legitimate interests.
For Bickford, the stakes are deeply personal. But if the restrictions stand, it could mark a dangerous turning point that allow parents to be barred from engaging in instructing their children in their religion, attending church with their children, or reading Scripture together if a judge finds the content concerning.
Liberty Counsel described this dynamic as a “heckler’s veto” against religious doctrine.
The order also creates practical challenges. It prohibits the daughter from associating with any members of Cavalry Chapel, reviewing church materials, or attending gatherings connected to the Church “or any other religious organization,” including Christmas and Easter celebrations. Under this language, one parent has the power to veto nearly any expression of faith during the other parent’s custodial time.
Bickford said she hopes the Maine Supreme Judicial Court will restore her rights. Her daughter “misses her friends and I really hope that this gets overturned,” she told reporters. “It needs to be. It’s unconstitutional.”
If the court sides with Bickford, the decision could send a strong message that judges cannot treat mainstream religious belief as a risk. If not, it could invite more aggressive judicial interference in parental religious decision-making.
Will the Maine Supreme Judicial Court reaffirm the constitutional right of a parent to raise her child in her faith, or not? The answer is expected to be released in the coming months.
Historically, courts have worked to protect the rights of parents to raise their children in their own religious tradition without government intrusion, but this case has thrown a bomb into that tradition.
That’s because it marks the first time that a court has treated Christianity as a harmful worldview in a custody dispute while presenting secularism as the neutral alternative.
It’s hardly a surprise that it’s come to this. Thanks to Supreme Court precedent set in cases like Everson v. Board of Education and School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, courts have kicked Christianity out of the public square and now defer to secularism as the government’s only “safe ground” in matters of religious expression.
But secularism is hardly neutral. It is a worldview with its own assumptions about truth and morality and its own “sins,” and in today’s culture, it has become a kind of state-approved religion. It is often presented as reasonable and objective, while the Christian faith is presented as dangerous, extreme, or cult-like.
This trend has slowly led American society into confusion and relativism, whereby nothing is wrong — except biblical beliefs, which are viewed as hateful, intolerant, and discriminatory.
If this seems absurd, just check out Europe, which embraced secularism much earlier than the U.S. There, pro-lifers are now arrested for “praying in their minds” near U.K. abortion clinics and a Finnish parliamentarian and bishop were recently tried (for the third time) for posting Bible verses about marriage and sexuality.
Bickford v. Bradeen takes this same “neutral” lens and applies it to the sacred space of family. Both parents are private citizens, but the court treated one parent’s secular worldview as the objective standard and the Christian parent’s worldview as something harmful.
That shift should concern every believer because it signals that Christianity is no longer seen as a respected, protected, or even normal tradition within families. Instead, judges are beginning to prioritize secularism over Christianity.
This is why the Maine case matters so much. If a fit parent can be barred from taking a child to church or reading Scripture simply because a court decides that Christian teaching is psychologically harmful, then secularism has become the default and enforced worldview of the state. And the consequences will not be limited to one family. It will threaten the freedom of every Christian parent who seeks to pass on their faith to their children.
Let us pray that Maine’s Supreme Court judges recognize the absurdity of this anti-Christian decision and rule in favor of the Constitution and the sanctity of the family.
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