Maine Mom Challenges Court Order Forbidding Her to Take Daughter to Church

New American ^ | 11/19/2025 | Michael Tennant

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The Maine Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a case challenging a lower-court order barring a mother from taking her daughter to church because the girl’s father, who never married her mother, claims it is causing her “psychological harm.”

Unholy Father Eleven months ago, Matthew Bradeen secured an order from the Portland District Court giving him the exclusive power to decide which religious activities his 12-year-old daughter, Ava, may participate in.

Bradeen’s relationship with Ava’s mother, Emily Bickford, ended before Ava was born. Bickford has primary custody of Ava; Bradeen has visitation rights.

Bickford and her daughter have been attending Calvary Chapel, an evangelical Christian church in Portland, for more than three years. After Ava told her dad last year that she was planning to be baptized, he went to court to stop it.

According to Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver, who is representing Bickford, Bradeen took his case to a judge who is “a former ACLU president” and obtained expert testimony from Dr. Janja Lalich, “a Marxist former sociology professor from California.”

Bradeen claimed that, after she began attending Calvary Chapel, Ava “started having severe panic attacks and exhibited alarming psychological signs — like leaving notes around the house that said ‘the rapture is coming,’” wrote Maine’s NBC affiliate WCSH.

Liberty Counsel noted that Lalich, an “expert on cults,”

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TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Religion; Society
KEYWORDS: aclu; children; christian; christianchurch; church; daughter; emilybickford; jennifernofsinger; maine; mother; unholyfather

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Yes, hence my “we’re screwed” comment.

There far more activist, anti-constitution judges out there than we know

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Kid might grow up believing there’s something bigger and more important than the State.