(WND)—A judge in Maine stunningly has ruled that a mother is forbidden from taking her daughter to church. Any church that her ex-boyfriend does not approve.
And the legal team at Liberty Counsel has confirmed it launched an immediate effort to overturn the decision that actually violates multiple court precedents. The report from Liberty Counsel uses pseudonyms to keep the identities of the mom and child private.
What happened is common: Mom and dad had a daughter 12 years ago, they broke up, even before the daughter was born, and “everything was fine” until the mom and daughter started attending church.
“When [the daughter] began wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Bible verses to her father’s house, Mark rushed to the local family court, declaring those shirts to be ‘religious paraphernalia,’” the team reported.
He claimed being baptized was “indoctrination.”
And a large part of his complaint was that the church, Calvary Chapel of Bangor, “teaches the [B]ible chapter by chapter, verse by verse.”
To push his own religious ideology, he “hired a former California State University sociology professor to testify that Calvary Chapel is a ‘cult,’” Liberty Counsel confirmed, with a demand the court ban the mom from taking the daughter to church.
Then the judge stepped up to the campaign.
“Outrageously, the anti-God judge in this case was more than happy to oblige. The judge spent 11 pages excoriating Calvary Chapel of Bangor, and quoting a former Marxist sociology professor’s assertions that Bible-teaching churches like Calvary Chapel are ‘Moses Cults’ that ‘harm’ children. The judge ruled that [the mom’s] religious beliefs ‘eclipsed her ability to make decisions that are in [her daughter’s] best interests,’ Because [the mom] had testified that her daughter’s belief in God was ‘more important than anything.’”
He demanded the mom never take the daughter to Calvary Chapel – “or ANY church that does not meet [the dad’s] approval – ever again.”
Liberty Counsel explained Calvary Church of Bangor was founded by Pastor Ken Graves, a “God-honoring man” and does teach the Bible.
In fact, Liberty Counsel defended the church when “Gov. Janet Mills threatened to arrest and imprison anyone who attended church during the COVID panic.”
The legal team cited the U.S. Constitution, “hundreds of years of legal precedents, and even the Maine Supreme Court” which all say the government may not prevent a parent from raising a child in his or her own faith.
The judge, apparently believing he could reject all of those standards, issued a decision “to fit her apparent personal animus against God, even as she stripped [the mom] of her legal right to take her daughter to church.:”
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