As mentioned yesterday, there's a controversial new law in Indiana, which has prompted quite the backlash, including from businesses within the state.
It's hard to make sense of the yelling from both sides, but I've found a few articles to be particularly illuminating (and well worth reading in full):
PolitiFact dives in and tries to answer the question that's been raised from the right, Did Barack Obama vote for Religious Freedom Restoration Act with 'very same' wording as Indiana's?
Under Indiana’s post-Hobby Lobby law, a "person" is extended to mean "a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a company, a firm, a society, a joint-stock company, an unincorporated association" or another entity driven by religious belief that can sue and be sued.
...
The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, is concerned about another difference in the wording of the two laws. Indiana’s law includes language that allows people to claim a religious freedom exemption "regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding."
That language is absent from the Illinois law.
...Now that gay marriage is increasingly popular, this RFRA has become a signals contest in the culture war. Obviously nobody is obligated to engage in any form of discrimination in Indiana, and I would wager that 99.9 percent of Indiana's businesses will not turn away a single person for being gay. But it's all about positioning yourself within this moment we're having. Pence has to pretend the law doesn't protect bigotry against gays because that doesn't poll so well anymore, but can't seem to argue that protecting civil liberties often requires defending bigots or it's not really a civil liberty. The CEO of Apple has to write a big commentary about how discrimination is wrong and bad, and how you should also know that Apple, the company that he works for that sells many, many expensive things to customers, would never do such a thing...
And the IndyStar asks the real questions at issue (and includes a useful overview of the debate so far):
Which really matters most: What the religious freedom law will actually legally enable; what people think it means; or what the intent is behind the law?
... Will the political maneuvering on both sides continue to obscure people's understanding of the practical effects of the law?
Because then it begins to matter less what the law actually does, than what people "think" it allows them to do — whether that is to openly discriminate against gay people or unfairly cast all Christians as intolerant.
For my money, the truth is likely in the middle of the debate: considering only the law as written, it isn't likely to lead to religious abuse (since there's ample precedent from other states' similar laws), though it may incentivize such behavior for those few who see it as allowing discrimination.