Emily Bickford passed every parental fitness test Maine courts could give her.
Then the same court handed her ex-boyfriend the power to ban their daughter from the Bible.
What that Maine judge put in writing is now headed straight to the Supreme Court.
How This Custody Order Stripped Emily Bickford of Her First Amendment Parental Rights
Maine District Judge Jennifer Nofsinger didn't just rule against Emily Bickford in a custody dispute.
She stripped Bickford of her right to make any religious or medical decisions for her own daughter – and handed that authority entirely to a man who spent about $15,000 hiring a California cult expert to attack a mainstream evangelical church.
That expert – sociology professor Janja Lalich – opened her twenty-page report with one admission: "I do not opine that Calvary Chapel is a cult."
Then she spent the next nineteen and a half pages treating it like one anyway.
Judge Nofsinger used that report to issue one of the most sweeping anti-Christian orders in modern American custody law.
The order bars Bickford from Calvary Chapel of Greater Portland entirely – its services, its materials, any contact with its members.
On top of that, it stripped her of all authority to make religious or medical decisions for her daughter, handing sole control to the father. Then comes the broadest restriction of all: no exposure to "religious philosophy or the Bible in general."
That final phrase isn't about one church's doctrine or one pastor's sermons – the Bible itself is what Maine's court decided this girl needs protection from.
The Maine Supreme Court Just Put Itself at War with Three Religious Freedom Precedents
All six justices of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard the case and ruled September 1, 2026.
Their evidence that Christianity was harming this girl?
Pastor Travis Carey prayed for Matthew Bradeen – the father – by name during a 2024 church service and described him as "in need of salvation."
That is what Maine's highest court accepted as proof that a child was being psychologically damaged by her mother's faith.
Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver went straight at the constitutional question.
"This opinion rejects the First Amendment right of a fit parent to raise her child consistent with her Christian faith," Staver said. "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."
He's right on the law. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Supreme Court ruled parents have a fundamental constitutional right to direct the religious upbringing of their children.
Troxel v. Granville (2000) reaffirmed that parental rights are among the oldest fundamental liberty interests recognized under the Constitution.
And last year, a 6-3 Supreme Court ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor that government cannot substantially burden a parent's right to direct their child's religious upbringing – even when the restriction sounds neutral and procedural.
Maine's six justices put themselves in direct conflict with all three.
Pastor Travis Carey called it "the most dangerous precedent that has been set in our nation in a long time."
Why Liberty Counsel Is Taking This Child Custody Case to the Supreme Court
The playbook is now on the record: a non-believing parent hires a cult expert, builds a case that Christianity is psychologically harmful to a child, and walks out of family court with a judge's order banning the Bible.
Pennsylvania courts reversed a nearly identical order when a father was stripped of custody purely for his religious beliefs, and New Jersey courts reversed a similar order restricting a father from taking his daughters to a nondenominational church.
Maine didn't reverse – it said proceed, and that ruling is now precedent in every family court in the state.
Every divorce attorney representing a secular parent just received a how-to guide that survived two levels of Maine's court system, including a unanimous state Supreme Court.
Staver and Liberty Counsel are filing their petition with the U.S. Supreme Court – the same Court that ruled 6-3 for parental religious rights in Mahmoud last year.
If the justices take it, Maine gets reversed and the playbook gets torn up – and if they pass, family courts across the country just received a template for removing Christianity from a child's life through a custody dispute.
Sources:
- Liberty Counsel, "Maine Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds Custody Order Prohibiting Mother From Taking Daughter to Church," Liberty Counsel, September 1, 2026.
- "Maine Supreme Court Rules Mom Can't Take Her Daughter to Church," CBN News, September 2026.
- "The Court Tries to Give God a Restraining Order," National Review, September 2026.
- Pat Gray, "Maine Supreme Court Sides with Dad: Mom Can't Take Daughter to Church," The Blaze, September 9, 2026.
- Victoria Taft, "Want to Kill Christianity in America? Try This One Simple Trick the State of Maine Pulled," PJ Media, September 28, 2026.