Court Denies Historic Preservation Grant to Church, Calls Basic Repairs Religious Activities

A county in New Jersey is appealing a court decision that says repairing furnaces or broken plumbing in historic churches is “religious” and grants cannot be used on the fixes.

Morris County is suing to use grant funds to pay for repairs and preservation projects at historic churches. Under the ruling, the grants cannot be used for historic churches.

The New Jersey state Supreme Court said in its ruling in April that the grants could not go to religious “activities,” and defined those activities as basic repairs.

“The churches are not being denied grant funds because they are religious institutions; they are being denied public funds because of what they plan to do — and in many cases have done: use public funds to repair church buildings so that religious worship services can be held there,” New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote in the decision.

However, according to WND, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2017 said that churches could not be barred from programs that are available to the public because of religion.  The court decided that excluding churches would violate the First Amendment.

“Time does not discriminate,” said Diana Verm, a legal counsel at the Becket Fund, the firm representing the county. “It takes its toll on all our historic structures, secular and religious alike. The county should…