WASHINGTON—Troy Williams lives in Utah. His first boyfriend brought him to a company Christmas party. The boyfriend got fired a week later.

There was nothing to be done. In Utah, as in most states, job discrimination against gays and lesbians was perfectly legal.

Critics of Indiana’s “religious freedom” law accuse state politicians of handing bigots a “licence to discriminate.” The national uproar may obscure a relevant fact: discrimination against gays and lesbians people is already allowed in much of the country.

Utah, for example, doesn’t have an Indiana-like religious freedom law. But until three weeks ago, the state had never included sexual orientation or gender identity on its list of prohibited grounds for discrimination.

If a city didn’t impose its own restrictions, homophobic landlords and corporate managers could do as they pleased. They took advantage: Williams, now executive director of Equality Utah, said he collected enough distressing stories to fill “books.”

“Everything,” he said. “People getting fired from their jobs. Evicted from their homes. Et cetera.”

Utah’s new law, passed with the once-unthinkable endorsement of Mormon religious leaders, forbids anti-gay discrimination in housing and employment. The law permits discrimination in public accommodations like stores and restaurants, but the gay community in one of America’s most conservative places is celebrating more than complaining: fewer than half of the 50 states offer any protections at all.

Undeterred by the crisis engulfing Indiana, the Arkansas legislature passed a similar religious freedom law on Tuesday. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence held a morning news conference to announce he would “fix” his law to make clear that it does not allow discrimination.

Both the Indiana and Arkansas laws allow residents to challenge any other law that would put a “substantial burden” on their exercise of religion. Some legal experts believe that language might allow discrimination against gays and lesbians trying to purchase wedding services.

The symbolism is powerful. In vast swaths of both states, the impact is nonexistent: businesses in most of Indiana and Arkansas have always been allowed to turn away same-sex couples.

The practical question is whether the new laws will trump the anti-discrimination laws of cities like Indianapolis and Little Rock — and, crucially, the laws of the future.

Both sides of the fight are “playing a long game,” said Ira Lupu, emeritus law professor at George Washington University. The religious freedom law might not give any new power to a rural-Indiana baker now, Lupu said, but it might help down the road if the gay rights movement keeps gaining.

“If you’re on the religious right, the long game looks like this. We’re going to lose on marriage equality. We see that coming. The next wave . . . is pushes for anti-discrimination laws. And we want a RFRA (religious freedom law), or something else that protects us, in case, when those laws come,” he said.

Almost all of the solidly Republican states of the South, Great Plains and Mountain West omit gays and lesbians from anti-discrimination laws. So do the Democratic-leaning northern states of Pennsylvania and Michigan. In the places where progress has been slowest, fears of firings and evictions can temper the happiest of moments.

Gay marriage supporters in Huntsville, Alabama held a joyous “wedding week” event in February. At least three couples told James Robinson, executive director of the organization Free2Be, not to share photos of them.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“They came out and they got married, but even though we saw them and talked to them, they would tell us, ‘Please don’t put my picture on social media, please don’t say anything about me,’ ” Robinson said.

“Because they knew, the next day when they went back to work, they could lose their job.”