New Jersey Supreme Court rules churches ineligible for renovation grants
By Bradford Richardson - The Washington Times - Wednesday, April 18, 2018
The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously ruled Wednesday that it’s a violation of the state constitution to award historic preservation grants to houses of worship.
The 7-0 decision reversed a lower court ruling that said church involvement in the program was permissible because the government used “neutral criteria” to determine grant recipients.
Diana Verm, an attorney for the nonprofit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said Wednesday’s ruling goes against last year’s Trinity Lutheran v. Comer decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can’t bar religious institutions from participating in government aid programs.
“The Court’s decision today leaves churches out in the cold and denies the many important contributions they have made to our nation’s history and culture,” Ms. Verm said in a statement. “Denying widely available historic preservation grants to churches simply because they are churches departs from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last summer in Trinity Lutheran that the Constitution prohibits governments from discriminating against religious organizations.”
New Jersey voters in Morris County approved the Historic Preservation Trust Fund in 2002. From 2012 to 2015, the County Freeholder Board approved more than $11.1 million in grants, $4.6 million of which went to repair and restore historic churches.
Grant applications were limited to four entities: the Morris County government, municipal governments in Morris County, charitable groups involved with historic preservation and religious institutions.
Writing for the court majority, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner ruled the program violates the Religious Aid Clause of the New Jersey Constitution.
“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,” Chief Justice Rabner wrote.
“Those grants constitute an impermissible religious use of public funds.”
The Religious Aid Clause states that no one shall be “obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right or has deliberately and voluntarily engaged to perform.”
Citing the First Amendment and the Trinity Lutheran decision, Justice Lee Solomon argued in a concurring opinion that the Religious Aid Clause cannot “categorically bar churches” from receiving funds that promote “a substantial government purpose, such as historic preservation.”
The Morris County program would have been constitutional had it been applied “in a fundamentally neutral manner,” Justice Solomon wrote.
Churches that already had received grants will not be forced to repay the funds.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a secular group based in Madison, Wisconsin, filed a lawsuit in 2015 to prevent Morris County from using taxpayer dollars to maintain historic houses of worship.
Andrew L. Siedel, a constitutional attorney for the atheist group, said the decision is a “not just a win for secular citizens, but for every New Jersey taxpayer.”
“Governments in New Jersey cannot force Muslims to bankroll temples and yeshivas, compel Jews to subsidize Christian churches and Catholic schools, force Christians to fund mosques and madrassas, or nonbelievers to support any religion,” Mr. Siedel said in a statement. “It’s a win for all.”
Other secular groups also praised Wednesday’s decision.
“This a big win for the religious freedom of state taxpayers, who shouldn’t have to foot the bill for church construction and religious worship services,” Daniel Mach, director of the Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/18/new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-churches-ineligible/
My comments: So, the War against Christianity in America goes on. Secular Judges and Courts denying the Fundamental place of Christianity in the Foundation of America and American history. An Historic building, should have to do with its age and prominence in the Community in which it exists, not whether it continues to perform a Religious function.
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