A 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL JUST WANTS TO GO TO CHURCH

Liberty Counsel is headed to the US Supreme Court to defend her.

Imagine being 13 years old — and told by a court that you cannot go to church, associate with your Christian friends, celebrate Christmas or Easter, or even read the Bible! That is what happened to Ava.

Ava loves going to church. She misses her friends. She wants to worship with her mother. She wants to hear the Word of God.

But the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has told her NO.

The court found Ava’s mother, Emily Bickford, to be an exceptionally fit parent — yet restricted her ability to take Ava to church because of her Christian faith.

Liberty Counsel will now take this case, Bickford v. Bradeen, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And because a special Challenge Grant is available, your gift can be DOUBLED!

How this case started:

This case began after Emily and Ava became Christians and joined Calvary Chapel in Portland, Maine. Emily Bickford and Matthew Bradeen are the parents of Ava. After Ava was conceived, they never married or lived together. They agreed to share custody. But . . .

When Ava told her father she wanted to be baptized, he ran to the court to stop it.

Matthew Bradeen objected to Calvary Chapel’s Bible teaching, including its teachings about hell, angels, demons, spiritual warfare, gender, marriage, and Christian living.

The resulting court order gave Ava’s father, who is hostile to Christianity, absolute and final authority over her religious instruction. Under the order, Ava is banned not only from attending Calvary Chapel but also any other church, Christian organization, or event, or being exposed to any “religious philosophy or the Bible in general.”

Over the last two years, Matthew has refused to approve any church, anywhere, that Emily and Ava have suggested.

Ava can’t even attend Easter or Christmas celebrations. She cannot associate with Christian friends, and she is even banned from reading the Bible!

Sadly, the Maine Supreme Court has now upheld that decision, saying that Emily has no constitutional right to the free exercise of religion!

The Maine Supreme Court decision:

In the ruling delivered last week, the ME Supreme Court never once quoted the outrageous order issued by the lower court. Instead, the ME Supreme Court took the position that whenever two parents cannot agree on the religious upbringing of their child, the court gets to make the decision.

But in cases that involve the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, courts cannot give an absolute veto right to one parent over the other when there is no evidence of abuse or neglect — and there is none in this case. In such cases, each parent is allowed to raise the child in their own faith during that parent’s custodial time.

But the Maine Supreme Court refused to uphold that basic standard, instead effectively trying to force the father’s atheistic religion on not only his daughter, but also on the mother.

Liberty Counsel is taking Bickford v. Bradeen to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This is about more than one mother and her daughter.

If courts can prevent a fit Christian mother from taking her own child to church, what is to stop other courts from interfering with Christian parents’ rights to raise their children in their faith?

Ava wants to go back to church.

Please help us fight to make that possible — and help establish that no court has the power to sever a child from her faith. DOUBLE YOUR IMPACT with our Challenge Grant.

Please pray for Ava and Emily — and for the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize the constitutional rights at stake.

Thank you for standing with us.