New Jersey Churches

The Supreme Court has made it clear that religion must be treated equally and government hostility and discrimination toward religion is wrong. However, that did not stop the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Mendham Methodist Church and Zion Lutheran Church Long Valley in Morris County, NJ are now being excluded from consideration for a historic building preservation grant – which they had previously qualified for.

Both churches wanted to be part of the long-standing Morris County (NJ) Historic Preservation Trust Fund. This should not have been a problem or a surprise, because churches in the county were previously granted access to the fund and were considered as historic buildings worthy of preservation.

However, church buildings abruptly became disqualified in 2018 when the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that religious institutions no longer qualified – contrary to previous years and their long-standing inclusion in the Historic Preservation Trust Fund of Morris County. The court found that the use of taxpayer dollars through preservation grants was “unconstitutional” and violated the New Jersey Constitution when used for restoring a historic church building (or religious institution). This new ruling reversed a lower court decision, precluding churches from benefiting from the grant program, which Morris County implemented the new ruling through a policy change, prohibiting churches from participating in the program.

Since that time, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled several times that the federal Constitution prohibits the exclusion of religious institutions from generally available public funding programs simply because of their religious activities.

States and local governments that choose to provide a generally available public benefit — such as historic preservation grants — cannot exclude an otherwise-qualified applicant solely because the applicant happens to be, and operates as, a house of worship. The grants are about promoting and supporting historic preservation. Restoring and preserving historic churches enriches the entire community.

Simply put, excluding otherwise-eligible religious organizations from public benefits solely because of the organizations’ religious exercise is “pure discrimination against religion.”

First Liberty Institute, Jones Day, the Pepperdine Religious Liberty Clinic, and Roselli Griegel Lozier & Lazzaro, P.C., filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of The Mendham Methodist Church and The Zion Lutheran Church Long Valley in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey against Morris County.  The suit challenges the County’s implementation of a state-court ruling that mandated the exclusion of churches. In the churches’ lawsuit, their attorneys argued, “[the County’s] requirement that eligible buildings not be used for religious purposes or functions… constitutes intentional…discrimination and targeting against religion in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution[.]”

Though the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition to hear a similar case in 2019, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, said in a separate statement that New Jersey’s law appeared to violate the U.S. Constitution. The three Justices wrote, “Barring religious organizations because they are religious from a general historic preservation grants program is pure discrimination against religion.”

Architecture is part of the community and belongs to all the people, not only the congregants of the churches.  The historic nature of these churches must be preserved, and it is illegal for the Morris County to discriminate and exclude churches because of religion.