## Facts

- Morris County voters approved a trust fund financed by a county property tax to support open space, farmland, and historic preservation projects.
- The County implemented a historic preservation grant program open to municipalities, the County, certain charitable conservancies, and religious institutions.
- From 2012 to 2015, the County awarded over $11 million in historic preservation grants; about 41.7% went to twelve churches with active congregations.
- The grants funded preparation of construction documents and physical restoration projects (e.g., buildings, towers, parish houses, windows) for structures used for worship.
- Some church applications linked requested funds to the ability to continue offering religious services.
- Grants over $50,000 cumulatively required a 30-year historic preservation easement in favor of the County and negotiated public access.
- Plaintiffs (a nonprofit organization and a county taxpayer) challenged the program under the New Jersey Constitution’s Religious Aid Clause, which bars compelling taxpayers to pay for “building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship.”

## Issues

1. Whether county historic preservation grants funded by taxpayer revenues that directly pay for repair and restoration of active houses of worship violate the New Jersey Constitution’s Religious Aid Clause.
2. If the Religious Aid Clause bars such grants, whether that application is prohibited by the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

## Decision

- The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed the judgment upholding the grants and ruled for plaintiffs.
- The court held that the Religious Aid Clause prohibits using taxpayer funds to repair or restore churches used for worship, even when presented as historic preservation.
- The court held that enforcing the Religious Aid Clause’s bar in this context does not violate the federal Free Exercise Clause.
- The court entered prospective relief, enjoining the County from disbursing future historic preservation funds to repair or restore any church, without ordering repayment of past grants.

## Legal Principles

- The Religious Aid Clause’s plain text bars compelled taxpayer funding for “building or repairing” churches or places of worship; the bar applies even when the government asserts a secular purpose such as historic preservation.
- A program’s facial neutrality and safeguards (easements and limited public access) do not permit direct public subsidies for physical repairs to active houses of worship when the state constitution categorically forbids it.
- For federal Free Exercise purposes, a restriction focused on the religious use of public funds to repair worship spaces can be distinguished from discrimination based solely on religious status.
- The Free Exercise Clause does not require a state or local government to provide public funds for repair or restoration of active worship structures when the state constitution forbids compelled taxpayer support for that use.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that Morris County’s tax-funded historic preservation grants to repair and restore active churches violated New Jersey’s Religious Aid Clause and that enforcing this use-based prohibition did not contravene the federal Free Exercise Clause; the County was permanently barred from making such future grants.


Freedom From Religion Found. v. Morris Cnty. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders, 181 A.3d 992 (N.J. 2018)