Gage, Ricketts’ spokesman, said not only have such laws been used against people of faith, but they’ve been used in other states “to guarantee biological males who identify as female the legal right to gain access to women’s bathrooms and locker rooms as well as to dominate girls sports.”

Sen. Pansing Brooks said one needs only to look at what’s happened in Omaha since the city adopted a local anti-discrimination ordinance to see that such laws wouldn’t create such problems.

“The sky hasn’t fallen,” she said. “Churches are thriving and business in Omaha is thriving.”

Ricketts and Pansing Brooks take vastly different positions on the issue, despite the fact that both have family members who are gay.

Ricketts’ sister, Laura Ricketts, is a lesbian and a gay rights advocate in Chicago who helped found LPAC, a lesbian-backed super PAC that endorses federal and state candidates across the country. Pansing Brooks has a gay son who left the state and is now working in cybersecurity in Washington, D.C.

Pansing Brooks said the new business support has been a game-changer in the Legislature, prompting her to prioritize the bill and beginning to change minds within the body.