The civil-rights leader has been dead for 108 years, but his words resonate with Wolfson, who pulls a piece of paper from his wallet and reads: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will."

So when Wolfson, a national gay-rights leader, hears that his opponents are vowing to wage total war against gay marriage, and reminds himself that his life priorities are opposed by the pope and the president of the United States, he takes comfort in Douglass' admonition that one cannot assume a cleansing rain will arrive "without thunder and lightning."

The climate has been stormy, to an unprecedented degree, ...