U.S. Supreme Court building. shutterstock.com

Morris County is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by New Jersey's high court that said the award of $4.6 million in taxpayer funds for historic preservation of churches violated the Religious Aid Clause of the state constitution.

The petition for a writ of certiorari was filed Tuesday on behalf of the county and a group of churches by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for the rights of religious institutions.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in April that awarding the historic preservation grants to the churches violated the state constitution, holding that the recipients “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.”

Becket was an amicus before the state Supreme Court.

In the petition, Becket argues that the funds were necessary to preserve the historic nature of  the churches, some of which were built during the 1700s and are showing the results of historic decay.

“Time takes its toll on all things—including historic places of worship,” Becket's lead attorney, Eric Baxter, wrote in the petition. “Accounting for this melancholy truth, federal, state, and local governments have long allocated funds for the preservation of historic sites, secular and religious alike.”

He added, “This effort has the noble purpose of maintaining connections to the past, honoring history's most striking achievements, and preserving the character and beauty of our nation's diverse communities.”

Baxter noted that lower courts have split on the issue of whether public funds can be used for historic preservation of religious facilities, and urged the Supreme Court to resolve the issue.

The lawsuit challenging the Morris County grants was filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Its lead attorney, Andrew Seidel, could not be reached for comment on the petition.

According to the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision in the case, between 2012 and 2015, about $4.6 million of the Morris County freeholders' $11.1 million in historic preservation grants went to 12 churches. The recipient properties had to be registered on the national and New Jersey registers of historic places, among other qualifications, and several recipients noted on their applications that the funds would be used to renovate houses of worship used for services, according to the court.

In late 2015 the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and David Steketee, a member of the organization and resident of Morris County, sued the freeholder board and other Morris County parties. The organization relied on the New Jersey Constitution's Religious Aide Clause, which provides that citizens can't be required ”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[.]”

The freeholders removed the case to federal court, but U.S. District Judge John Vazquez in 2016 remanded it. The county's motion for summary judgment was granted by Somerset County Superior Court Judge Margaret Goodzeit, who held that the county was not barred from awarding grants to churches. The Supreme Court took up the case directly from Goodzeit, and reversed her holding.