Family · Portland, ME Metro · September 2, 2026
Maine top court backs order barring mom from taking daughter to church
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The father did not attack the church's doctrine in the abstract — he asked the court to enforce the co-parenting agreement the mother had already agreed to, which required consultation on religious upbringing. The Law Court's September 1, 2026 affirmance rests on that gap between stated rule and actual practice: findings that services were attended without notifying him, that the mother testified she would not do anything contrary to what she believed God wanted even if a court order required it, and that she stayed put while the pastor prayed at length about the litigation, naming the parties. The opinion also records that the pastor counseled her to keep bringing the child over the father's objection.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Get the actual parenting order or plan out of the file and read the decision-making and notification clauses word for word, then comply in writing — a dated email before each event, kept in a folder. Pastors and elders: keep named, ongoing litigation out of services, prayer lists and livestreams, and never counsel a parent to disregard a court order; that counsel became evidence here. Close the gap yourself before a lawyer finds it.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The fight was moved off ground the church knows — Scripture, doctrine, free exercise — onto ground it does not: clinical evidence of a child's anxiety and panic attacks, witness testimony labeling the church a "cult," and Maine's best-interest fact-finding under 19-A M.R.S. § 1653. The Law Court then declined to apply strict scrutiny to the allocation of religious decision-making, so the case turned on deference to the trial judge's findings of fact rather than on First Amendment doctrine, where Liberty Counsel was strongest.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Prepare that unfamiliar ground before being dragged onto it: read § 1653's best-interest factors and the 2026 ME 94 opinion itself, not just the press releases. A parent in a disputed case should have a licensed clinician's own assessment of the child in hand before a hearing, not after. In a meeting or interview, say "I don't know, I'll find out" about psychology and procedure rather than improvising a theological answer to an evidentiary question.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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