Overview
- The Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed a lower-court custody order that gives father Matthew Bradeen final authority to decide whether his daughter may attend Calvary Chapel Greater Portland or be exposed to its materials.
- The trial judge found specific harms from the church’s messaging, citing a pastor’s sermon that named the father, the girl’s reported panic attack after rapture teaching, and a pattern the court said risked alienating her from her father.
- The courts credited expert testimony from Janja Lalich that described the local congregation as a closed or cultic social system and relied on that testimony when assessing the effect of the church’s messages on the child.
- The Maine high court held that strict scrutiny does not apply to how parents allocate decisionmaking between themselves and instead applied the lower 'best interest of the child' standard to resolve the dispute.
- Liberty Counsel has announced plans to seek review at the U.S. Supreme Court, a move that could force a national ruling on how courts balance a fit parent’s First Amendment rights against evidence that religious teachings harm a child.