And, while the NCAA's wildly popular March Madness tournament will conclude in Indianapolis next week, NCAA President Mark Emmert only implied that the signing of Thursday's bill "might affect future events as well as our work force."

Where else are there RFRAs?

Religious Freedom Restoration Acts not only exist in nearly 20 other states, but on the federal level as well. Breaking down the components of Indiana's RFRA law, Josh Blackman, a constitutional law expert, found it to be more similar to its federal counterpart than other RFRAs like Mississippi.

Indiana, as well as Arizona’s RFRAs are very similar to the Federal RFRA. In contrast, Mississippi’s RFRA, which only requires a “burden,” not a “substantial” one, deviates significantly from the federal statute.

Blackman went on to stress that "RFRA is not a blank check to discriminate."

Controversial legislation elsewhere

As a growing number of states now permit same-sex marriage, and with the Supreme Court expected to rule on same-sex marriage later this year, Indiana's initiative reflects the different ways in which tensions between religious factions and gays and lesbians are playing out.

One extreme example: Earlier this week in California, State Attorney General Kamala Harris signaled that she would seek to fight a ballot initiative that calls for the execution of gays and lesbians by "bullets to the head." Harris, who is running for the Senate in 2016, has taken some criticism for announcing that she would fight an initiative that likely would have gone away on its own.

But that raises its own question: Is it valuable to know what potentially discriminatory legislation looks like when taken to the extreme?

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