A Maine father will be allowed to prevent his daughter from attending a local Christian church with her mother, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court said in a ruling this week.
The decision from the high court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Matthew Bradeen that found it was "psychologically unsafe" for Emily Bickford to take their daughter to Calvary Chapel in the Portland region.
The young girl reportedly suffered from panic attacks and psychological distress after attending the church; she reportedly became fixated on the rapture (an end-times belief held by some Christians) as well.
The Maine high court said in its ruling that at one point the church's pastor openly prayed about the dispute between Bickford and Bradeen, including referencing both the parents and the child "by name almost 30 times."
The court dismissed Bickford's constitutional claims in the dispute. The father "is better suited to determine whether certain religious activities are in the child's best interest," it held.
In a press release, the legal group Liberty Counsel, which represented Bickford in the dispute, said it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case. Mat Staver, the group's chair, said the ruling "rejects the First Amendment right" of Bickford and goes against U.S. court precedent.
"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 argued.
He claimed that the ruling "pose[s] a serious threat to religious freedom" in the U.S.
