Revised Lawsuit Filed By Long Valley Church Over Taxpayer Money

LONG VALLEY, NJ — Two Morris County churches, including Zion Lutheran Church, have filed a revised version of a lawsuit against the county, alleging discrimination after being denied participation in a grant program.

The First Amended Complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey on July 14, three months after the original lawsuit was filed by the same parties.

The Long Valley congregation claimed that the county's policy of prohibiting houses of worship from receiving taxpayer-funded historical preservation grants amounted to "unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of religion."

The First Liberty Institute, a Texas nonprofit, and the religious liberty law clinic at Pepperdine University in California assisted the two churches in filing the lawsuit.

Once again, the lawsuit is naming Morris County as a defendant along with the Morris County Board of County Commissioners, the Morris County Historic Preservation Trust Fund Review Board and John Krickus, the county board’s commissioner director.

According to the amended lawsuit, the county's exclusion discriminates against religion and penalizes congregations' free exercise of religion, which is illegal and violates the text and spirit of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

"The Court should therefore uphold the fundamental constitutional principle of religious equality––that excluding religious organizations from generally available government programs is pure discrimination against religion," the lawsuit states.

A county spokesman stated earlier this spring that the county would not comment on the lawsuit due to pending litigation.

The lawsuit specifically mentions the county's historic preservation trust fund, which was established in 2003 and previously allowed historically significant churches and religious organizations to apply for and receive grants.

However, the state Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the county's practice of awarding millions of dollars in grants to local churches for historic preservation violated the state constitution's Religious Aid Clause.

In the court's 2018 opinion, State Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote that "the plain language of the Religious Aid Clause bars the use of taxpayer funds to repair and restore churches, and that Morris County's program ran afoul of that longstanding provision."

According to the lawsuit, Morris County then petitioned the United States Supreme Court for certiorari, which declined to hear the case.

"In his statement respecting denial of certiorari, Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Alito and Gorsuch, explained that certain open factual issues counseled against the Court’s review, but emphasized that excluding a site from a historic preservation program solely because it is religious creates 'serious tension with this Court’s religious equality precedents,'" the lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs argue that since the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision, historic New Jersey churches have suffered as church buildings deteriorate and congregations lack the funds to make necessary repairs.

According to the lawsuit, the two churches in Morris County applied for grants to repair their historic buildings, but county officials rejected their applications and told them they were ineligible for funding.

According to the lawsuit, Zion Lutheran received $27,760 from the county's historic preservation fund in 2017, prior to the state Supreme Court's ruling. That funding was used to implement a historic preservation plan, which included a thorough assessment of the church's structure to determine which areas of the building needed to be addressed first with the limited funds.

"Notwithstanding that funding, Zion Lutheran currently needs assistance to maintain the structural and historical integrity of its church building," the complaint says.

The lawsuit contends that the county typically provides grant money as long as the organization or building has historic significance and plans to use the grant money for historic preservation purposes. "Plaintiffs incontrovertibly meet those two requirements, given their rich histories in Morris County and express statements that they would use the funding for much-needed repairs to preserve the historic nature of their buildings," the suit said.

The plaintiffs also argue that other private organizations have previously received grant funding including the Morristown Community Theater, the Madison Masonic Lodge and the Women’s Club of Morristown.

In a previous statement, Mayor Matt Murello said that he is in full support of the Zion Church in their legal efforts and that he hopes that the lawsuit, along with the legislative efforts bring change to the policy.