The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has unanimously upheld a custody arrangement giving a father authority over his 13-year-old daughter’s religious upbringing, leaving the girl’s mother restricted from taking her to church or engaging her with the Bible and other religious material.
The dispute involves Emily Bickford and Matthew Bradeen, unmarried and separated parents whose disagreement over their daughter’s religious formation ultimately reached Maine’s highest court.
According to LifeSiteNews, Bradeen argued that his daughter began experiencing panic attacks after Bickford started taking her to Calvary Chapel of Portland. He maintained that the girl had developed fears surrounding the rapture, including concerns that her father and sister would not go to Heaven.
The custody dispute eventually resulted in authority over the child’s religious upbringing being transferred from Bickford to Bradeen.
LifeSiteNews reported that a witness presented by the father assessed sermons from Calvary Chapel and characterized their teachings as potentially psychologically harmful. Bickford’s attorneys have challenged the weight given to that assessment.
Bickford is represented by Liberty Counsel, which argues that she is a fit parent and that there have been no allegations that she abused or neglected her daughter. The organization maintains that the restrictions imposed on her religious interactions with her child violate constitutional protections for parental rights and the free exercise of religion.
“Calvary Chapel is not a cult,” Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver said, according to LifeSiteNews.
Staver argued that the scope of the custody order reaches far beyond the question of attending a particular congregation.
“The breadth of this court order is breathtaking because it even prohibits contact with the Bible, religious literature, or religious philosophy,” Staver said. “The custody order cannot prohibit Bickford from taking her daughter to church. The implications of this order pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”
Maine’s highest court, however, rejected Bickford’s constitutional challenge.
According to the court language cited by LifeSiteNews, the justices concluded that an “allocation of parental authority between two parents does not implicate the individual constitutional rights of either of them.”
The court also upheld the allocation of medical decision-making authority to Bradeen.
“Bickford’s subjective beliefs did not preclude the court from finding that Bradeen is, in fact, better suited to make medical decisions, and the court neither violated the Constitution nor abused its discretion in allocating medical decision-making to Bradeen,” the justices concluded.
The ruling was unanimous.
The case raises significant questions for Catholic and other Christian parents about the intersection of family law, parental authority and religious liberty, particularly when separated parents disagree over the religious formation of their children.
For Catholics, the ability and responsibility of parents to provide religious formation for their children is deeply rooted in the Church’s understanding of family life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes parents as having the “first responsibility for the education of their children” and teaches that parents have a mission of evangelizing their children and educating them in the faith.
Although Bickford’s case concerns attendance at Calvary Chapel rather than a Catholic parish, the constitutional questions raised by her attorneys could have broader implications for religious parents of many faith traditions.
Liberty Counsel has announced that it intends to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
“This opinion rejects the First Amendment right of a fit parent to raise her child consistent with her Christian faith,” Staver said in response to the Maine court’s decision.
He also criticized the practical effect of the restrictions, saying Bickford has been prevented from participating in religious services or study with her daughter for nearly two years.
“And somehow the Maine Supreme Court thinks this court order does not violate her rights as a fit parent and her Free Exercise rights under the First Amendment,” Staver said.
Liberty Counsel maintains that granting one parent exclusive authority over religious upbringing while restricting the other parent’s ability to share her faith fails to adequately protect religious liberty.
“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,” Staver said.
With Liberty Counsel preparing an appeal, the dispute could next place the questions of parental rights, custody and religious formation before the nation’s highest court.
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