The University of Notre Dame School of Law. / Credit: Wikimedia CommonsCNA Staff, Jun 14, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).The University of Notre Dame School of Law s religious liberty initiative announced its support of a federal lawsuit challenging the exclusion of houses of worship from a state historic grant program. The amicus brief, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in the case Mendham Methodist Church v. Morris County, argues that "excluding religious organizations from generally available grant programs" both "violates the law and harms congregations and their surrounding communities," according to a press release from the school s Religious Liberty Clinic. The lawsuit, originally filed last year, concerns a "Historic Preservation Trust Fund" run by Morris County, New Jersey. The county through that fund "distributes money to eligible organizations for the repair, restoration, and preservation of historic local buildi
Morris County can't exclude churches from the historic preservation fund because they're houses of worship, officials argue in a federal lawsuit filed last week.
New Jersey-based Mendham Methodist Church and Zion Lutheran Church Long Valley have filed a federal lawsuit against Morris County, alleging religious discrimination after the County excluded them from the Morris County Historic Preservation Trust Fund.