Calvary Chapel Belfast filed the complaint against UMS and some of its staff members in U.S. District Court last week.
The church submitted a proposal to UMS to purchase a vacant property known as the Hutchinson Center to accommodate its growing congregation.
Although UMS initially allowed Calvary Chapel to negotiate the purchase of the center in August, complaints from community members over the theologically conservative views on sexual ethics and pressure from other bidders for the property led UMS to rescind their offer.
The University of Maine announced last week that the center property is awarded to a nonprofit called Waldo Community Action Partners.
The church’s lawsuit claims that after its award was rescinded, it again participated in the request for proposal process but was denied in favor of WCAP. The lawsuit described the WCAP as a “secular bidder that had maliciously criticized the Church’s religious identity and beliefs and on whose Board sits a State Senator who openly stoked flames of religious hostility towards the Church in the community.”
Attorneys for the church say UMS “violated the First Amendment by discrimination against a church because of its Christian beliefs.”