Maine’s high court backs father’s authority over daughter’s church attendance
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld a lower court ruling granting a father final say over whether his daughter attends her mother’s evangelical church, citing harm from messages that denigrated him. The mother’s lawyer plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has affirmed a lower court ruling that gives a father final decision-making authority over whether his daughter attends her mother’s evangelical church, resolving a parental dispute over the child’s religious upbringing. The decision, issued Tuesday, upholds a Portland District Court judge’s 2024 order in a case between Matthew Bradeen and Emily Bickford concerning their daughter, who was 11 at the time of the dispute.
Bickford had been taking the girl to Calvary Chapel Greater Portland, an evangelical church in Westbrook, multiple times each week. Bradeen argued the church was a “dangerous and harmful environment” that caused anxiety in his daughter, including a panic attack after hearing teachings about the Rapture, the belief that Christians will be suddenly taken to heaven during the end times while nonbelievers face apocalypse. The lower court sided with Bradeen, finding that messages the child received at the church were “psychologically damaging” because of how they characterized her father.
The ruling grants Bradeen the right to decide whether his daughter attends services at Calvary Chapel, participates in church activities, or interacts with church members other than her mother. The court also said the parents must “continue to share parental rights and responsibilities” regarding the girl’s exposure to other religious groups, but if they disagree, the father has the final say. The court said this allocation stemmed from the parents’ inability to jointly make decisions about the child’s religious upbringing, not from disagreement with the mother’s beliefs.
Part of the case centered on a service in which the pastor singled out Bradeen by name. As legal proceedings were ongoing, Bickford brought her daughter to a service where pastor Travis Carey led a six-and-a-half-minute prayer focused on the case, referring to the parents and child by name nearly 30 times, saying Bradeen is “in need of salvation” and calling the proceedings “an attack on God’s Word.” The Maine Supreme Court noted Bickford made no attempt to remove her child from the service and later described it as “appropriate.”
“Bickford is unwilling to recognize, much less mitigate, the risk that these messages alienate the child from Bradeen or otherwise cause her harm,” the court wrote. In the 2024 order, Judge Jennifer Nofsinger wrote that the harm did not result from “a belief system that is rooted in the Bible,” but rather from the mother’s “inability to co-parent” regarding religion and her decision to give the church control over decisions about her daughter’s best interests.
The Maine Supreme Court wrote that the child was harmed by Bickford’s decisions to expose her to messages that characterized Bradeen as an “enemy” who seeks to “persecute” the child and her faith. The final 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.”
Bickford’s lawyer, Mathew Staver, told The Maine Monitor he intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her legal team has 90 days to file an appeal. Staver’s firm, Liberty Counsel, a Christian ministry focused on religious freedom, argued to Maine’s high court that the 2024 order violated the mother’s First Amendment rights through its “open hostility” toward religious beliefs. Staver said the decision puts Maine “at odds with the courts of a number of other states” and could attract Supreme Court attention because of its reach regarding the First Amendment’s exercise clause.
Bradeen’s lawyer, Michelle King, called the decision “well thought-out and reasoned,” saying Bradeen was happy with the outcome. “Anytime you’re in court, it’s stressful,” King said. “But this case has definitely garnered a lot of media attention, and I think that’s always difficult for parents.”
