For generations, and especially in the 31 months since the United States Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the legislatures of the South have been a cultural battleground.

Mississippi passed, and has so far successfully defended in court, a law allowing people to use their religious beliefs to justify refusing to provide services to gay people. North Carolina was the setting for the legal and cultural clash over restrooms and discrimination protections that drew national attention. Last year, Alabama passed a law allowing faith-based adoption groups to refuse to work with same-sex couples and still keep their state licenses. And a candidate there who had publicly condemned gay people and tried to block same-sex marriages in the state nearly won election to the United States Senate.

On the other hand, Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia vetoed a bill that lawmakers passed in 2016 to shield religious groups from repercussions if they refused to employ or serve gay people. In Tennessee, two bills that reaffirm the state Constitution’s view that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that criticize the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage as “a lawless opinion with no basis in American law or history,” have sputtered.

And in Texas, where some of the country’s most contentious bills on gay and transgender rights have been brought up, the Legislature is not scheduled to meet at all in 2018. A “bathroom bill” failed twice there last year.

Observers on all sides say it is too early to know with certainty whether more contentious social legislation will eventually emerge this year. But the evidence so far suggests that the pace has slowed markedly.

Lawmakers, advocates and experts offer several explanations for this year’s apparent falloff. Washington figures prominently in some of them: Legislators are waiting to see what the Supreme Court decides in a major case involving a baker's refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, some say. And many conservatives are said to be focused on pushing ahead at the federal rather than state level while Republicans control Congress and the White House.