Here are some things that have not happened in Indiana recently:

• Christians arrested in their houses, jobs, places of worship
• Christian children forced to pledge fealty to Satan at school
• Bible burnings, church closures or cross confiscations
• Christian-owned businesses forced to shut down or move out of state
• Anything else that could reasonably be construed as government or social persecution of Christians anywhere in the state

Yet, a vocal minority of Indiana's Christian population demanded, and got, a so-called "religious freedom" law.

This law says, "a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person's (or a church's) exercise of religion," and that "a person … may assert the violation or impending violation (of religious exercise) as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding." In short, "religious freedom" becomes a valid and overriding defense for a person or church's actions, even in private lawsuits.

Importantly, the bill expands the definition of "person" beyond just, you know, people, to include businesses. That allows even large corporations to invoke "religious freedom" in their defense in any criminal or civil proceeding.

Where did it come from?

Reality tells us that this very vocal minority of Christians in Indiana demanded the law because they wanted the freedom, as individuals, as churches, and as businesses, to discriminate against gays and lesbians. The recent push for these laws – dozens of states have passed or are considering such laws in the last few years – have come in direct response to growing legal and cultural acceptance of same-sex marriage.

Reality-denying supporters of the law claim it's simply not true that the law was passed to facilitate discrimination. They're likely to point you to the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a bill that followed a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld discrimination against Native Americans' right to use peyote in their traditional religious ceremonies, a decision that reversed decades of precedent the court had set for itself and that people seemed to appreciate. The RFRA, as it's called, was explicitly written by Congress to clarify that those previous precedents should remain the law of the land – thus the "restore" of the law's name.

A different 1997 case said that the RFRA could not be applied to states; at the same time, though, there was no epidemic of state-based crackdowns on anyone's religion (there still isn't!), so the spread of such laws at the state level was slow. Lately some hyper-religious businesses, in particular, fear that the spread of same-sex marriage across the country and the culture puts them is a risky legal position. If they engage in the discrimination they want to against gays and lesbians, they could face consequences. Hence the rapid recent spread of these laws.

The federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, by the way, was never intended to apply to business. In last year's Hobby Lobby birth-control decisions, the current Supreme Court's conservative majority completely abandoned the legislative intent behind the RFRA and expanded the federal law's scope to allow corporations to discriminate against women or gays as long as they could attest that the religious beliefs of their owners required such discrimination.

In the week since the Indiana bill was signed into law, the state has faced a huge backlash, disproportionate to what other states with similar laws have faced. Some states, like Illinois, didn't face much of a backlash passing their religious freedom laws, because those states have additional laws offering strong protection for gays and lesbians against discrimination already; Indiana does not.

It probably hasn't helped that this week the NCAA hosts its men's basketball Final Four in Indianapolis, so an extra-bright spotlight is on the state, and there's a movement afoot to convince the NCAA to pull out. International corporations from Apple to Yelp have weighed in against the bill, and several companies, like Salesforce and Angie's List, have announced plans to cancel investment in the state.

This is all because the law is widely understood to give that very vocal minority of Christians the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

But no! the bill's supporters claim, it does no such thing! Still, in their defenses of the law – this one is typical – they flat-out say the reasoning behind the bills is to protect business opposed to abortion, birth control, or gay marriage, from the consequences of their discriminatory actions. The cognitive dissonance is stunning.

I mean, the piece I just linked actually even quotes Indiana Gov. Mike Pence saying last week the bill "does not even apply to disputes between private parties unless government action is involved." That is self-evidently false, based on the language of the bill saying it applies "regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding."

And as the backlash has grown, Pence has started to backpedal: "We are in discussions with legislative leaders this weekend to see if there's a way to clarify the intent of the law," Pence said Saturday, in an attempt to, in the reporter's words, "'clarify' that Indiana's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not promote discrimination against gays and lesbians."

In other words, April Fools! This bill we passed, it doesn't really mean what we said it would mean!

This is some severe disingenuity. If the bill doesn't countenance discrimination, then there's no need to "clarify" it and, indeed, no need for it to have been passed in the first place. Who's the fool now?