Maine’s highest court has ruled that a father can prevent his daughter from attending a Calvary Chapel with her mother in a contested custody case after a lower court accepted an expert’s claim that the congregation is akin to a “cult.”
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) released a unanimous ruling Tuesday in Emily A. Bickford v. Matthew A. Bradeen, authored by Chief Justice Valeria Stanfill.
At issue is an order of “shared parental rights and responsibilities” between Bickford and Bradeen, in which the two disagreed over who would control their child’s religious upbringing.
Bradeen objected to Bickford bringing the child to Calvary Chapel Greater Portland, a theologically conservative church, and to her refusal to let the child receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Stanfill upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Bradeen, writing that the “strict scrutiny” usually given to parental rights arguments about religion “does not apply to allocations of parental rights between a child’s parents.”
“Parents have a fundamental constitutional right to direct the upbringing of their children, including in matters of religion,” wrote Stanfill. “Importantly, however, the parents share that right.”
“An allocation of rights to one parent inherently limits the authority of the other but does not necessarily infringe upon the constitutional rights of either parent.”
The ruling stated that “parental rights and responsibilities must be allocated in whatever fashion best serves the best interest of the child.” The court was “unpersuaded by Bickford’s claim” that the lower court had shown “hostility toward her religion by describing her church in offensive terms, including referring to it as a ‘cult.'”
“The court used the word ‘cult’ only in describing the testimony of [California sociology professor Janja] Lalich, the stipulated expert on ‘cults.’ The court noted that ‘cult’ serves as a shorthand for what sociologists like Lalich call ‘closed social systems’ and that Lalich identified Bickford’s church as one of these systems,” the Maine Supreme Court ruling states. “The court used ‘cult’ in summarizing Lalich’s testimony, but it did not otherwise refer to Bickford’s church as either a cult or a closed social system.”
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver, who argued Bickford’s case before the Maine SJC, said he plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“This opinion rejects the First Amendment right of a fit parent to raise her child consistent with her Christian faith,” said Staver in a statement, calling the opinion “disappointing” and “a serious threat to religious freedom.”
“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.”
Michelle King, an attorney representing Bradeen, told The Maine Monitor that she “anticipated all along” the case might go to the U.S. Supreme Court, calling the Maine high court’s ruling “well thought-out and reasoned.”
“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.”
Staver has pushed back on the allegations that the church is a “cult,” saying that the lower court order banned Bickford “from taking her child to a Christian church because of its biblical teachings.”
“The breadth of this court order is breathtaking because it even prohibits contact with the Bible, religious literature, or religious philosophy,” stated Staver of the lower court’s order last November. “The custody order cannot prohibit Bickford from taking her daughter to church. The implications of this order pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”
In the appeal to the state Supreme Court, attorneys for Bickford refuted the district court’s claim that it was “not taking a position on any religious principle.”
“The entire compelling interest discussion (and, really the entire order) does exactly that,” the appeal states. “The district court denigrated Bickford’s religious beliefs as ‘cultic’ and psychologically harmful, and then used that characterization to strip Bickford of her fundamental right to direct the religious upbringing of her daughter.”
The lower court gave Bradeen the “right and responsibility to make decisions regarding whether [child] attends any services, gatherings, or events associated with Calvary Chapel.”
The Liberty Counsel brief contends that Bradeen objected to his daughter attending Calvary Chapel in Portland in part because it teaches the Bible “verse by verse,” including what it says about eternal damnation, fallen angels, demons and warfare.
“The district court made a factual finding, based on the so-called cult expert’s testimony, that the sermons at Calvary Chapel are filled with ‘hateful rhetoric’ — homophobia, disdain of science, and hatred of public schools,” the attorneys for Bickford wrote in their appeal.
