The Pfefferian Inversion

THE PFEFFERIAN INVERSION

Leo Pfeffer, now rich in years and honors, has done more than anyone else to shape the law regarding religion and the state in America. School prayer, religious symbols in the classroom, aid to parochial schools —for forty years he has argued against them all before the Supreme Court and, more often than not, he has won. In a recent memoir, Pfeffer describes himself as an “absolutist for strict separationism.” For him, the “wall of separation” between church and state can never be high enough. He knows that being an absolutist is an extreme position, but his idea of democracy is that absolutists on one side contend against absolutists on the other, and somehow something like justice emerges from the battle. Looking back, he seems puzzled that the absolutists on “the religious side” just weren’t there when they should have been. Again and again, his absolutism prevailed, as though by default.

RJ

About the Author

Richard John Neuhaus

THE PFEFFERIAN INVERSION

Leo Pfeffer, now rich in years and honors, has done more than anyone else to shape the law regarding religion and the state in America. School prayer, religious symbols in the classroom, aid to parochial schools —for forty years he has argued against them all before the Supreme Court and, more often than not, he has won. In a recent memoir, Pfeffer describes himself as an “absolutist for strict separationism.” For him, the “wall of separation” between church and state can never be high enough. He knows that being an absolutist is an extreme position, but his idea of democracy is that absolutists on one side contend against absolutists on the other, and somehow something like justice emerges from the battle. Looking back, he seems puzzled that the absolutists on “the religious side” just weren’t there when they should have been. Again and again, his absolutism prevailed, as though by default.