The torturously slow fight for marriage equality in New York State has been going on for the last week. There have been lots of rallies, pro and con.

Yesterday something interesting happened. State senator Ruben Diaz, the only Democrat to oppose equality, showed up at a rally with a bunch of anti-gay Hasidic Jews. Then suddenly Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the LGBT synagogue in New York City, appeared with her own pro-equality sign. A sign battle ensued for a few moments as each side tried to get their sign in front of the camera.

And then, for some reason, Rabbi Kleinbaum did something controversial: she put her arm around the shoulder of one of the Hasidic Jews. This is just not done. Hasidic Jews believe it’s wrong to physically touch people of the opposite sex other than your spouse.

Below is the video of what happened. For a moment the man did nothing; maybe it took him a few seconds to realize what was going on. But then he violently pulled away, as if he’d touched a pulsating pile of human brains, and he and his colleague ritually spit in Rabbi Kleinbaum’s direction and began shouting at her, “You are not a Jew!”

For some reason she seemed surprised that these guys were so upset. Come on, rabbi: you’re an expert on Judaism. How did you expect them to react?

I really don’t understand what her point was. Maybe she was trying to be friendly? At any rate, I think it was stupid of her to touch the guy. I don’t think she had any right to do so; would it have been proper to force feed him a ham sandwich?

And it undermines our message. One of the points of the marriage equality movement is that it is distinctly not about infringing on other people’s religious practices. Religion should not infringe upon the state, and vice versa. If marriage equality becomes law, Hasidic Jews and evangelical Christians will still have the right to refuse such marriages from taking place in their houses of worship; they will continue to have every right to practice their religion. They just won’t be permitted to make the rest of us practice it as well.

I can understand why some people might think it was okay for Kleinbaum to try to “teach the guy a lesson.” After all, Hasidic Judaism is homophobic and sexist; these men are trying to impose their beliefs on other people, and the imposition of their beliefs has harmful consequences for real-life couples and families; and they chose to protest in a secular location, and a crowded one at that, so they should have expected that they might accidentally touch someone of the opposite gender.

But Kleinbaum went out of her way to put her arm around the guy. She didn’t bump into him. She did it deliberately.

No, it’s not a terrible thing. But it wasn’t really necessary, either.