The Supreme Court will not take up a case involving whether houses of worship in New Jersey can be awarded taxpayer-funded grants for historical preservation, letting stand a lower court ruling that determined they could not.
At issue in the case are historic preservation grants awarded by Morris County, New Jersey, to 12 churches between 2012 and 2015. The grants are funded by a county tax dedicated to historic preservation.
In 2015, Freedom from Religion Foundation and David Steketee, a resident of Morris County, filed a lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court arguing the grants violated the New Jersey Constitution. The state Supreme Court last year found that under the state Constitution, religious institutions could not receive public dollars and blocked the churches from receiving the grants for historic preservation.
In a statement agreeing with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear this particular case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh nevertheless said the decision from the New Jersey Supreme Court “is in serious tension with this court’s religious equality precedents.”
“At some point, this court will need to decide whether governments that distribute historic preservation funds may deny funds to religious organizations simply because the organizations are religious,” Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, wrote.
