Early in the week that ended with New York enacting same-sex marriage, the Rev. Anna Taylor Sweringen stood in a hallway just outside the State Senate chambers. She wore her clerical collar and held a sign saying, “Equality now.” Around her gathered ministers and rabbis of similar sentiment, all in Albany to lobby and pray for the right of gay couples to wed.
As Ms. Taylor Sweringen looked down the corridor, she saw the mirror image of mobilized clergy members, all irreconcilably opposed. One held a placard declaring, “God says no.” Then the assemblage broke into a gospel song. “I told Satan to get thee behind,” it went. “Victory today is mine.”
Among her allies, Ms. Taylor Sweringen responded with a spiritual from the civil rights movement, “I’m Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table.” Soon the dueling choirs were lining up along facing walls, barely inches apart, and the state police had to clear a...