by Jorge Gomez • 2 minutes
Great news! We recently secured an important win for two houses of worship in New Jersey.
First Liberty reached a favorable settlement for The Mendham Methodist Church and The Zion Lutheran Church Long Valley. They were previously excluded from participating in the Morris County Historic Preservation Trust Fund, a public grant program created to preserve and restore historic landmarks.
After years of battling in court, this is a big victory for our clients. The settlement means the churches will receive the funding they deserve.
“We are glad to have reached a settlement with Morris County on behalf of The Mendham Methodist Church and The Zion Lutheran Church Long Valley,” said Jeremy Dys, Senior Counsel with First Liberty. “Time and again, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that all forms of religious discrimination by the government are unconstitutional, including the denial of historic preservation grants to historic churches.”
The grant preservation program was created in 2003. For more than a decade, churches and religious organizations with historical significance were eligible for––and received––funding. Morris County distributed a total of $4.6 million in public aid to churches. Funds went toward repairing historic buildings—from roofs to bell towers, stained-glass windows and ventilation systems.
In 2018, however, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Morris County’s long-standing practice of providing historic preservation grants to churches violated the state constitution.
Even though the county wanted to continue this long-standing practice of providing aid to churches, that ruling prevented it from allocating the funds.
First Liberty filed a lawsuit in 2023, arguing that excluding churches from a public program is unconstitutional. In our “Treat Children Fairly” case, Carson v. Makin, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all government assistance programs must treat religious organizations the same as everyone else, and funds can’t be denied simply because program participants are religious. The New Jersey Attorney General intervened to defend the exclusion of churches from the grant program shortly after the lawsuit was filed.
In 2024, a federal district court granted our request for a preliminary injunction and made clear that houses of worship cannot be excluded from generally available public benefits—such as historic preservation grants. That ruling allowed Morris County to once again include churches in its fund, as it had done for many years.
With this recent settlement, both churches will have the freedom and the resources they need to live out their divinely inspired calling. This is also an encouraging victory to ensure that ALL houses of worship are treated fairly.
Thank you for supporting First Liberty. Reaching this settlement would not have been possible without you. Your support makes all the difference for churches that simply want the opportunity to serve God and their communities.
We’re winning and making an impact all across our country. But the battle to secure religious freedom for houses of worship is far from over. Churches continue to confront serious violations of their rights.
Please donate to First Liberty today, so we can keep fighting—and winning—for congregations and people of faith in America.
 |
|
|
