Maine Supreme Court Rules Dad Can Forbid (Lesbian) Mom From Taking Teen Christian to Church

https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/09/04/maine-supreme-court-rules-dad-can-
forbid-mom-from-taking-teen-christian-to-church/

A teenage Christian may not go to church with her mother unless her father 
permits it, according to a Sept. 1 ruling by the Maine Supreme Judicial 
Court. The 13-year-old girl has not been allowed to gather with any church 
since December 2024, when Cumberland County Judge Jennifer Nofsinger, a 
lesbian, gave her father “final authority” over his daughter’s religious 
activity.

David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical 
Worldview, described the ruling as “a serious threat to religious 
liberty,” in addition to threatening parental rights.

“This opinion rejects the First Amendment right of a fit parent to raise 
her child consistent with her Christian faith,” argued Liberty Counsel 
Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. “This opinion goes against other state 
court decisions involving custody in the context of religious free 
exercise rights and ignores precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court. We will 
ask the High Court to take this case and overrule the decision.”

In a unanimous ruling, Maine’s highest court upheld Nofsinger’s decision, 
arguing that “allocating authority between two parents does not 
‘intru[de]’ on the parents’ shared right to direct the upbringing of their 
child,” but that “allocation of religious authority” to the father alone 
“was in the child’s best interest” in this case. Furthermore, the court 
ruled that a lower court had “erred by applying strict scrutiny” to the 
question of parental rights.

Family Context
It may be helpful, at this point, to back up for context. Emily Bickford 
and Matthew Bradeen had a child together in January 2013, even though they 
were never married. Before the year was out, the child’s mother and father 
had split, and a family law magistrate had already entered an order, 
agreed to by both parties, that set out “shared parental rights and 
responsibilities,” including a commitment to “reach jointly, whenever 
possible,” any “major decision concerning their child.”

Sometime after this, Bickford professed faith in Christ, and she began 
attending Calvary Chapel Greater Portland in May 2021. The Maine Supreme 
Court noted with alarm that Bickford brought the child “to multiple 
services per week”—as American Christians customarily do.

“Bickford did not inform Bradeen about the child’s attendance at the 
church,” the court noted reprovingly. “After Bradeen learned about the 
child’s participation in a church event, he asked Bickford for more 
information about the church and its teachings. Bickford told Bradeen that 
she and the child were attending Calvary Chapel, but she did not provide 
any other information.”

This last clause shows either great ignorance or great bias, as if 
Bickford needed to provide “any other information” about a Calvary 
Chapel’s teaching. “Calvary Chapel is mainstream, we believe in the Old 
and New Testament,” protested Travis Carey, pastor of Calvary Chapel 
Greater Portland, in an interview with The Washington Stand.

Every Calvary Chapel teaches the same things, and their shared Statement 
of Faith can be found online in a minute or less. Among other things, 
every Calvary Chapel believes:

“The Word of God is the foundation upon which the church operates and is 
the basis for which the church is governed. We believe that the Word of 
God supersedes any earthly law that is contrary to the Holy Scriptures.”
“That the Lord, Jesus Christ instituted two ordinances for the church: the 
full-immersion water baptism of believers and the Lord’s Supper.”
“In a literal Heaven and a literal Hell and that all those who place their 
faith, hope and trust in Jesus Christ will spend eternity in Heaven with 
the Lord. Those who reject Jesus’ free gift of salvation will spend 
eternity separated from the Lord.”
“In the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which is His personal, visible 
return to Earth and the establishment of His millennial kingdom, in the 
resurrection of the body, the final judgment and eternal blessing of the 
righteous and endless separation of the wicked.”
“In the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church where all believers will 
meet the Lord in the air and be taken out of this world prior to the 
Tribulation that will come upon the earth.”
These points are selected for their relevance to what follows.

Months later, in September 2021, Bradeen “asked the court to allocate to 
him sole responsibility for the child’s religious upbringing,” according 
to the state supreme court. For the next three years, Bickford and Bradeen 
“participated in a series of mediation sessions, and they eventually 
resolved all their disagreements except for those pertaining to religion 
and healthcare.” (Bickford also objected to her daughter receiving COVID-
19 and flu shots and the HPV vaccine.)

Mistaken Baptism
The court record then erred by mistaking believers’ baptism for infant 
baptism. “Bickford made other unilateral decisions about the child’s 
participation in church activities,” its opinion stated. “For example, 
Bradeen learned that the child was scheduled to be baptized only when he 
was informed by a third party. Bradeen then called Bickford to ask about 
the baptism, and she placed him on speakerphone in front of the child.”

As noted above, Calvary Chapel practices believers’ baptism, which is only 
performed on individuals who believe the Christian gospel. The court omits 
the conversation that ensued after Bickford placed Bradeen on 
speakerphone, but the purpose was probably so that her daughter could 
describe her conversion to her father in her own words.

The girl “made an outward profession of faith,” Carey told The Washington 
Stand, and she “wanted to invite her dad to the baptism.” This is the most 
normal thing in the world, and it happens in churches across America every 
week. Somehow, the Maine Supreme Court twisted this into something 
sinister.

The ‘Cult’ Smear
In fact, Bradeen undertook legal proceedings to prove just that. At a two-
day hearing in August 2024, he produced an expert witness on cults, Janja 
Lalich, who flew in from California for the purpose. She described cults 
as “closed social systems” and suggested that Calvary Chapel Greater 
Portland had some identifying marks.

The Maine Supreme Court denied “Bickford’s claim that the court evinced 
hostility toward her religion by describing her church in offensive terms, 
including referring to it as a ‘cult,’” arguing that “cult” was merely the 
word chosen by the expert witness. However, the very fact that such an 
expert witness was allowed to testify implies the judge deemed her 
testimony relevant to the proceedings.

Jesus warned his followers to expect no better treatment. “It is enough 
for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. 
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will 
they malign those of his household” (Matthew 10:25).

Hell and Fear
The state Supreme Court further maligned Calvary Chapel Greater Portland 
for faithful, expositional preaching. “As described by the pastor, Travis 
Carey, Calvary Chapel teaches the Bible ‘verse by verse, chapter by 
chapter,’” it recorded, with scare quotes. “This entails sermons that 
include, in Carey’s words, ‘quite vivid description[s]’ of Hell.” How 
vivid? It sounds like Carey simply quotes Jesus: “There’s wailing and 
gnashing of teeth. There is burning and torment. The worm dieth not. 
Shame, eternal perpetual pain, and regret.”

The court was not finished. “Carey also testified that he preaches about 
the ‘Second Coming of Christ,’ which will involve ‘seven years of … pure 
hell on earth under the persecution of … the Antichrist’ for those who 
have not ‘accept[ed] the terms of God.’”

If any member of the Maine Supreme Court even bothered to check the 
Calvary Chapel statement of faith, this simple recitation of pre-
tribulation dispensationalism would not come as a surprise. Yet the court 
found it appropriate to put all these teachings in scare quotes as 
something foreign and strange. It acts as if some sabretooth cat had just 
jumped out of a paleontology textbook and was roaming through the 
courtroom.

These documents become relevant for the case because the court claimed, 
“The child has experienced fear and anxiety associated with these 
teachings.”

However, the evidence does not fully match that characterization. “The 
child has asked Bradeen a lot of questions about Heaven and Hell and about 
why Bradeen and his other child would not be in Heaven with her,” the 
court recited. “The child has left notes around Bradeen’s house because 
she fears that the Second Coming is approaching and that Bradeen will be 
left behind.”

“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 court declared.

On the contrary, the evidence suggests that, rather than fearing hell for 
herself, the child feared what her father might face and sought to bring 
him to repentance. This is what Paul writes to the church in Corinth: “For 
we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. … Therefore, 
knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others” (2 Corinthians 5:10-11). 
If anything, her embrace of evangelism is evidence that the girl genuinely 
believes the word of God.

Religious Discrimination
In relegating parental rights to the sidelines, the Maine Supreme Court 
had to choose its ground carefully to avoid the appearance of 
discriminating against Bickford’s religion. “The Constitution does not 
require the displacement of the best-interest standard and imposition of 
strict scrutiny any time a parental rights order implicates a parent’s 
religion,” the court stated. “It does, however, ‘mandate governmental 
neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and 
nonreligion.’”

The court claimed that the resulting situation—where final authority for 
all religious decision-making rests with Bradeen—avoids religious 
discrimination, when in fact it does no such thing. “The court’s 
allocation of religious decision-making to Bradeen ultimately rested on no 
more than its findings that the parties are unable to coparent on matters 
of religion, such that it was therefore necessary to allocate decision-
making to one or the other, and that Bradeen is better suited to determine 
whether certain religious activities are in the child’s best interest,” it 
alleged.

Why is Bradeen the better parent? The opinion emits the unspoken reason 
with a deafening roar of silence: because he doesn’t go to a kooky church 
where folks actually, like, believe stuff. “Bickford believes that the 
child’s relationship with God is more important than anything on earth, 
including the child’s relationship with Bradeen,” the court sneered.

To it, this was evidence that “Bickford has essentially abdicated her 
independent decision-making to the church. Bradeen, meanwhile, has taken a 
‘measured approach’ and ‘acted in a manner designed to protect [the child] 
from additional anxiety.’”

This gets the facts more twisted than a Twizzler. According to the court’s 
logic, if one parent wants to take a child to church and the other one 
doesn’t, courts should err on the side of less religious education—a 
bizarre conclusion incongruous with American history.

What About the Child?
The court never mentions the 13-year-old child’s own preferences. 
According to Carey, the pastor, she wanted to keep attending his church, 
where she came to believe the gospel and was baptized.

Without asking her opinion, the court projects onto the child its own 
judgment that her anxiety is due to hearing messages about hell, so 
preventing her from hearing about hell would ease her anxiety. Thus, the 
court paints itself into the role of Felix, the Roman governor in Acts 
24:25; as Paul “reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the 
coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, ‘Go away for the present. 
When I get an opportunity I will summon you.’”

But messages about hell are not easy to unhear, nor can Christian faith be 
easily quenched by suppressing it. Had she been consulted, the girl would 
likely have told the court that she was anxious for the salvation of her 
father. By banning the girl from attending church without the permission 
of her father, who does not want to go, the court has only ensured that 
her anxiety will likely continue.

In fact, Bradeen has forbidden his daughter to attend church—not just 
Calvary Chapel, but any church—since he won final authority in 2024.

Ironically, the court admitted that “the child has enjoyed a strong, 
loving relationship with each of the parties.” Despite this, it declared 
that “Bickford’s decisions regarding religion have endangered the child’s 
relationship with Bradeen” by exposing her “to messaging ‘that her father 
is going to burn and suffer for eternity, that he is persecuting her, that 
he seeks to “dismantle” her faith.’”

The court never confronts the incongruence between these claims. If such 
Christian teachings have not ruined the relationship between the girl and 
her father, one likely conclusion is that Christian teachings about hell 
do not necessarily ruin family relationships.

Christian belief can lead to family tensions, but only because of the 
persecution of the unconverted family members who hate the Christians for 
their beliefs. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. 
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” Jesus warned. “For I have 
come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, 
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies 
will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more 
than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than 
me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:34-37).

One hears of stories where Christian converts from Muslim families 
overseas risk their family relationships to publicly identify with Christ. 
But one rarely considers that a girl in Maine may have as much to risk.

Christian Perspective
The tragic circumstances of this case show the difficulties that can arise 
when Christians are “unequally yoked” with unbelievers in marriage and 
childrearing (2 Corinthians 6:14). This is a matter of increasing 
relevance as American culture becomes post-Christian. In Bickford’s case, 
she was not converted until after she bore a child, and after her 
relationship with Bradeen appeared to have come to an end. But for 
Christians who find themselves in this unenviable situation, Paul offers 
wise counsel in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, with a particular focus on what it 
means for children.

“From a Christian perspective, parents have a God-given responsibility to 
raise their children in the faith, to teach them Scripture, and to bring 
them into the life of the church,” Closson told The Washington Stand. Paul 
exhorts fathers, “Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up 
in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

“Unmarried parents obviously complicate how those responsibilities are 
exercised, and courts sometimes have to resolve genuine disputes between 
two parents who possess equal legal rights,” Closson allowed. “But that 
does not give judges a blank check to treat historic Christian doctrines 
as evidence of psychological harm or to rely on an expert’s 
characterization of an otherwise mainstream evangelical congregation as a 
‘cult’ or ‘closed social system.’”

“The state certainly has a legitimate interest in protecting children from 
actual abuse or neglect,” Closson continued. But “exposure to traditional 
Christian teaching is not evidence of parental unfitness. Religious 
liberty means very little if it protects only beliefs that judges, 
experts, or cultural elites consider benign or fashionable. … The 
government should not be in the business of deciding that the ordinary 
beliefs and practices of a theologically conservative Christian church are 
somehow so dangerous that a fit parent may be prohibited from taking her 
child there.”

Next Steps
“This is why I think the U.S. Supreme Court should take a close look at 
this case,” Closson added. “The principle at stake is much larger than one 
custody dispute: whether the government may effectively penalize a fit 
parent because her religious convictions are deemed too conservative or 
too unsettling by the court.”

“As tragic as this case is,” Carey lamented, “it should be eye-opening for 
not just Christians, but for every U.S. citizen, that this type of 
constitutional violation is happening.”

“Teachings about heaven and hell, spiritual warfare, biblical sexual 
ethics, or the authority of Scripture are not fringe beliefs invented by 
Calvary Chapel,” Closson said. “They are part of historic Christianity. 
Once courts begin treating orthodox Christian doctrine itself as a basis 
for restricting a parent’s relationship with her child, the First 
Amendment concerns become unavoidable.”

Originally published by The Washington Stand

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be 
construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.