Court Rules No Church Or Bible For 12-Year-Old

The Maine District Court has crossed a sacred line, and they did it knowingly. In a ruling so outrageous that it begs for an appeal, the court ruled that Emily Bickford could not take her 12-year-old daughter to church.

Bickford received a custody order from a lower court prohibiting her from taking the girl to services for Calvary Chapel, an evangelical Protestant fellowship of churches focused on expository Bible preaching.

That’s not all, according to Liberty Council, a legal advocacy group that’s working with Bickford, the court order also “allows prohibiting the daughter from reading the Bible.”

According to Liberty, Bickford is currently engaged in a custody battle with her daughter’s biological father, Matthew Bradeen. A court order has granted him the sole authority to decide whether their daughter can attend services at any Calvary Chapel, view video messages or literature from the denomination, or communicate with any members.

Here is where this asinine ruling goes from just plain wrong to spiteful leftist power rhetoric. The order also encompasses no contact with “any other church or religious organization, or exposure to the teachings of any religious philosophy or of the Bible in general.”

It’s no secret that the radical left is delirious to the point of madness. They will do anything to reinforce their opinion, even if it is so nonsensical that it defies reality. In this case, the madness is expressed by Dr. Jana Lalich, who was hired by Bradeen. Lalich, a self-righteous sociology professor and a so-called “expert on cults,” was brought on board to convince Maine District Judge Jennifer Nofsinger that Calvary Chapel is a cult because of its biblical teachings on hell, demons, and spiritual warfare.

According to Liberty Council:

“Dr. Lalich told the judge that cults usually have a charismatic, authoritarian leader who teaches about a ‘transcendent belief system’ that offers answers, and ‘promises some sort of salvation.”

“She further testified that she had ‘studied’ Calvary Chapel Church and found that the church’s pastor was a ‘charismatic’ speaker, spoke ‘authoritatively’ in his messages, and that he asserted his messages were the objective truth.”

This hack then falsely concluded that the girl could experience psychological harm by attending the church.

Let that sink in.

Here is a “supposed expert” describing any church service, of any denomination, anywhere in the world as a cultlike experience. The fact that the words came out of her idiotic mouth should have been enough for the judge to dismiss the argument immediately.

This was an attack on Christian worship, plain and simple. This was a case of an atheist hiring another atheist to enforce their own “cultlike” views on a 12-year-old girl. Liberty Counsel noted that Nofsinger repeatedly wrote “god” rather than “God” in her order, and that Bradeen did the same in his complaint.

During a hearing last week, attorneys representing Liberty Counsel argued that the decision to remove Emily Bickford’s parental authority violated her constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. They have requested that the state’s highest court overturn the lower court’s ruling and restore to Emily what was unjustly taken from her.

The First Amendment protects the freedom of religion, and although the 14th Amendment does not explicitly mention religious freedom, its “liberty clause” prevents states from infringing on individual religious liberties.

In discussing the case, Mathew Staver, Senior Pastor, Founder, and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, was straightforward:

“Calvary Chapel is not a cult. This custody order, which bans a mother from taking her child to a Christian church due to its biblical teachings on marriage and human sexuality, violates the First Amendment. The custody order cannot prevent the mother from taking her daughter to church. The breadth of this court order is breathtaking because it even prohibits contact with the Bible, religious literature, or religious philosophy. 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 a filing with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, attorneys for Liberty Counsel elaborated:

“Contending that [the mother’s] religious beliefs, which include prayer, reading the Bible, attending a mainstream Christian church that teaches from the Bible, that teaches there is a path to salvation, and that believes in objective truth, is psychologically harmful to a minor, is, quite simply, outside the realm of judicial authority. The order explicitly…forces the mother to remain away from church against her will, punishes the mother for professing certain religious beliefs, and punishes the mother for church attendance solely on the basis of the religious beliefs that are professed at that church.”

In court, Staver emphasized the broad implications and dangerous precedent that Judge Nofsinger’s ruling could establish if upheld. By implying that a mainstream Christian church is a “cult,” what would prevent numerous other dissatisfied parents from intervening to harass and prohibit their ex-partners from taking their children to church?

What we have here is a perfect storm of stupidity. An obviously obsessive, woke father is looking to stick it to his child’s mother. He hires a woke scammer to testify that a Christian church service can be considered a cult, and then a radical woke judge decides to take a shot, no matter how ludicrous, at Christianity by ruling in the moronic father’s favor.

Maine’s Supreme Court has no choice but to overturn this imbecilic ruling; otherwise, they will look even more foolish than the district court that handed them this steaming pile of nonsense.